I have always dreamt about visiting the Amazon Rainforest, and the idea of having an opportunity for artistic engagement with such landscape had a dream like quality. For quite a while, I have been interested in the indigenous knowledges and the notion of nature culture continuum. I could clearly see how the research into the Amazonian Rainforest would fit with, and inform my wider artistic interest and practice.
I came across LabVerde sometimes a while ago, and it struck me by its location and methodology for a short but intense art residency. I have applied to take part in it, and I was lucky to receive Arts Council Support (Artist international Development Fund) that enabled me to participate in the residency. Labverde is a well thought programme of activities and events that is focused on providing environments, community, and creating the conditions for creative immersion in the Amazon Rainforest.
‘LABVERDE is designed for artists and creators who are eager to reflect on nature and landscape. The program will promote an intensive experience in the Amazon rainforest aiming to explore the connection between science, art and the natural environment.’ https://www.labverde.com/
My proposed project for LabVerde continued my ongoing thematic concern into the relationship between human knowledge, aesthetic experience and the natural environment, and it would further expand the visionary scenario of a positive and desirable infection of the ineffable state, the state which enables transition and transformation towards better, sustainable futures.
Drawing from anthropological ideas such as semiotic beings (all life is semiotic) (Eduardo Kohn ‘How Forests Think, Towards Anthropology Beyond Human’), and the framework of the ‘four ontologies’- animism, totemism, naturalism and analogism (‘Beyond Nature and Culture Dychotomy’ P. Descola), and deriving tools for research based on this progressive anthropologies, I would look for ‘the thinking matter’, ‘the manifestations of the virus’, ‘ interconnected patterns’, ‘The Infectious Agent’ of and in the researched place- the Amazon. Using this approach, and through imagining, written text and biomorphic drawings, I would creatively explore how we profoundly interact with complex ecosystems, and how mindful, humane and sustainable politics can grow out from appreciative and sensitive engagement with nature.
