There’s been a bit a of a gap since the last post whilst I’ve been settling into a rhythm of working and continuing knowledge of the area. The next few posts will be an attempt to catch up.
I had a day away in Cambridge last Wednesday to attend the conference Debating Nature’s Value, organised by the Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin University, where I also teach. This was linked to the exhibition Liquid Land, currently on at the Ruskin Gallery, for which my friend and colleague Rosanna Greaves was commissioned to make the film: The Flaming Rage of the Sea , a beautiful and haunting moving image work which explores the constructed and changing landscape of the Cambridgeshire Fenlands.
It was strange to be back in my place of work, after being away for so long and without having to think about teaching or my other duties as MA Course Leader. I hadn’t previously engaged myself particularly with ecological concerns in relation to my artwork, but being based in the Thames Estuary during this residency and having explored and read some more about the immediate area surrounding me, have made me more a-tune to the particularity of this landscape and the factors that have shaped it historically and that continue to shape its future development. Even though the work I am planning is not about environmental concerns as such, they will inevitably be on the periphery. Moving through the landscape as I will be, it will be impossible to ignore what is around me.
The conference was a useful insight into different perspectives on policy regarding the conservation of the natural environment. There were some persuasive arguments put forward in relation to how putting an economic value on different aspects of the natural world in terms of ‘natural capital’ has a function in allowing the opportunity for ecologists to engage policy makers with concerns and decisions regarding ecosystems and sustainability. However, I found it hard to get my head round how you can put a true economic value on things that are not able to be measured reliably in that way. Whether or not the term is a metaphor, as was suggested many times, the idea of quantifying nature in terms of capital and in monetary terms doesn’t sit well with me, despite its apparent usefulness politically. Apart from the fact that the idea of value means so many different things (that don’t come down to measurement in monetary terms) I worry that ‘natural capital’ as a concept could become too much of an ideology that plays into the hands of those in power and who control money, even if part of the argument is that ecologists have speak the same language as them. It’s complicated: ecologists need to be able to communicate with politicians in a way that is persuasive and effective, and so ‘play the game’ as it were, but at the same time it’s a dangerous game to play, especially given how imperfect ‘natural capital’ as a system of measurement is. At the same time, the question of the environment is a pressing one. Surely there are other means of articulating the value of nature that are not just in relation to policy makers, big businesses and ‘natural capital’ as a marketing device.
The philosopher John Foster made sense when he suggested that ‘natural capital’ as a concept misrepresents the way nature matters to human beings. It seems to me that there is more work to be done in directly engaging the wider population with current concerns and with why nature matters. Value, I think lies in the value of education to change public opinion on a wider scale and in enabling public and community engagement in such a way that people feel that they have a voice and can make a difference to what is around them and to what directly affects them.
This post was not intended as as a political statement, but in trying to summarise in some way the content of the conference, politics is going to come into it. I have not come anywhere close to being able to adequately articulate the day’s proceedings but hopefully this post has given a small insight into the concept of ‘natural capital’ and how it is used as a political tool. The conference closed with a screening of Rosy’s film, previously mentioned, which offers an alternative view to a system driven by financial imperatives:
‘Ancestral memory, past traditions as well as the historical resistance to the draining of the Fens are evoked to create a film that speaks of change, migration, imported technologies and the precariousness of a landscape that lie below sea level.’ (Artist’s statement in Liquid Land exhibition pamphlet)
There are many analogies here to the marshlands that surround the Thames Estuary, but it is the particularity of the stilt-walkers that are reawakened in Rosy’s film that stay in my mind and haunt me.
The exhibition Liquid Land was curated by Rosanna Greaves and Harriet Loffler. It brings together a group of artists working with moving image, installation, performance and sculpture ‘whose work considers the complexities of landscape and the environment, explor[ing] the material, economic, ecological and cultural agendas at play when we experience and represent a landscape.’
Artists include: Matthew Cornford and David Cross; Georgie Grace; Rosanna Greaves; Alexandra Hughes; Reece Jones; Lotte Scott; Wilf Speller; Sally Stenton and Judy Nakazato.
The exhibition continues at the Ruskin Gallery, Anglia Ruskin University until Saturday 21st April 2018.
