Endangered Plants Index Degree Project

After visiting Sutton Hoo yesterday, I decided to visit Ipswich Museum today, hoping to explore how they labelled their exhibits, and the method in which they displayed things there.

Overall, I felt this wasn’t actually the most beneficial visit – and certainly not as beneficial as Sutton Hoo yesterday, as the museum was basically set up for children, and labelled and organised as such – meaning that the labelling system wasn’t as thorough or clear as it was at Sutton Hoo yesterday. Additionally, as the museum isn’t a site of historical significance itself, everything inside it was arranged in dioramas or cases – rather than reflecting history as it happened in the building as is the case with Sutton Hoo.

Having said this, I had hoped that due to the large number of taxidermy exhibits and archival artefacts that they have at Ipswich Museum, I would be able to gain some insight into how to organise and display my illustrations. Again however, as the majority of the items in the collection are taxidermy animals, the method of display was rather different to anything that I could achieve with my drawings. I did take photographs for reference though, and of possible later use, the ones which document the glass display cases are of most relevance I feel.

The second photo pictured below had the most relevance for me in terms of the subject of the collection, although the method of display was different (in a case, rather than displayed on a wall). However, it has given me some food for thought on how I label the work as a whole: whether I use one overarching label for the entire wall, separate labels for each drawing (in addition to the botanical labels I am creating), or create a list system for the individual drawings with number references. I have not fully decided what I will do in regards to this, however, I feel either the first (one overarching label) or the third (the list style) are the most probable formats I would use.

update: 08/06/22: I have drawn a lot from my visit to Sutton Hoo – and my memories of past visits to Sutton Hoo. I have very fond memories of spending time in the house (before the refurbishment), and I have attempted to recreate that to the best of my ability in my installation of the Endangered Plant Index Rewilding Project. 

Today I visited Sutton Hoo – a site of great historical importance – where I looked at an example of a house set up as a museum.

Unfortunately, the house had been re-done since I had last visited and it was no longer quite what I had hoped to see and take inspiration from for my degree show.However, it was still a valuable resource and I have taken some thoughts and ideas away from how they displayed information in the room.

The house had a definite uniformity to it in the way in which information was displayed, and there were three main elements of information display:

1. Information/text on the walls
2. Information/text printed onto table tops
3. Information/text displayed in photo frames

The photos below show the three different methods of display in the house:

1.

2.

3.

Obviously, the National Trust had a significantly larger pot of money to take from when displaying the exhibits in the house, but two which I can definitely make use of are the Information/text on the walls and Information/text displayed in photo frames.

The photo frames method is very doable for me, and is something that I think could also look very effective. Having one or two photo frames on the desk explaining what the viewer is looking at would add an additional element of believability to the work – making it look like a more lived in environment, whilst providing information to the viewer about the work itself.

On the other hand, I could also achieve the Information/text on the walls effect through the use of PhotoTex, which I can get printed at the university. However, this would be most effective, I feel, for large pieces of information or key quotes etc. as was shown in Tranmer House at Sutton Hoo, and is therefore not the most relevant method of information display that I could use for my installation on my rewilding project.

I will therefore be exploring the idea of displaying information in photo-frames more, looking at what sort of information I should include, and to what level of detail I should go into when writing about the project and explaining what the viewer is looking at. This will be the most difficult part, I feel, as I don’t want to say too much so that the viewer can’t take their own thoughts and opinions away from the piece, but I also don’t want to say too little, so that they don’t understand the significance and reason behind the work and how it relates to the drawings on the opposite wall.

During my dissertation, I explored the work of Alberto Baraya, and specifically his piece Herbarium of Artificial Plants. This work is of specific relevance to me and my practice, specifically in relation to my Degree Project The Endangered Plant Index, as throughout the project, I have been using herbarium documentation in order to create illustrations of the most endangered plants; bringing them into the public psyche.

What I find particularly fascinating about Baraya’s work is the fact that it uses and subverts the traditional model of the herbarium and botanist – using this model to create a statement about colonialism. and specifically the impact that colonial science had on the colonised lands.

Throughout the work, Baraya has taken practices that are easily identifiable as being those of western, colonial scientists and botanists, and then used them to his own ends in a contemporary context, which re-contextualises these practices and makes the viewer question them and the reason they are happening. The practice most relevant to my degree project (and which is pictured above), is his method of display, in which he emulated a museum display, similar to that of the Natural History Museum in London (see below). This for me is very interesting, as it reinforces the image and perception of the continuation of the past atrocity. But it is occurring in a way which is measured and chosen by Baraya to have a conscious impact on the viewer, rather than having a careless, detrimental effect on the people who live in and around the area where he made the work:

“replicating the tradition of botanical … expeditions that were carried out in Europe in the name of science and colonization.” (Nara Roesler Gallery. 2022).

The similarities between his and the traditional method of display is striking and, I believe, achieves a successful critique of the highly questionable methods of colonial scientists working in the field. The legacy of colonialism is something that the botanical sector (and whole scientific community) must face and explore – acknowledging the atrocities that occurred for the sake of new scientific and botanical discoveries – which is part of the delivery of climate justice.

According to a BBC article written by Jocelyn Timperley in 2021:

“Climate justice means many things to many people, but at its core is the recognition that those who are disproportionately impacted by climate change tend not to be those most responsible for causing it. Climate change is not only an environmental problem: it interacts with social systems, privileges and embedded injustices, and affects people of different class, race, gender, geography and generation unequally. The climate solutions proposed by climate justice advocates aim to address long-standing systemic injustices.” Timperley, J. (2021)

This definition establishes the interplay between the climate crisis and all other crises in the world – as the climate crisis is held up and enforced by the legacy of colonialism, rampant capitalism and neo-colonialism – which are the main causes of inequality and injustice in the world.

Sources:

1. Baraya, A. (2013 – 2014) Herbarium of Artificial Plants. [Insitallation]. Installation View 8th Berlin Biennale. Available at: https://www.berlindrawingroom.com/alberto-barayas-herbarium-of-artificial-plants/
2. Trustees of the Natural History Museum (N.D) Natural history galleries are often filled with male specimens that have big, showy characteristics ©. Available at: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2019/october/more-male-than-female-specimens-in-natural-history-collections.html
3. Timperley, J. (2021) The world’s fight for ‘climate justice’. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211103-the-countries-calling-for-climate-justice

This is a post that I made on my Instagram about the differences between individual and systemic change/action, and why (although individual change/action matters) systemic change/action is the thing that needs to happen now. The link to the post is here.

What we mean when we say the time for individual action is over.

We don’t mean that individual action isn’t crucial to combatting the climate crisis. Individual action has a HUGE impact on the state of the climate, and is the first vital step towards creating larger, community action. For example, one study shows that there could be “a reduction in emissions per person of 20-30% for halving meat consumption” (1).

We mean that the climate crisis is bigger than the individual, and in order to tackle it, we need action on both the National and International level. We need companies and governments to take concrete and direct climate action. Some examples of systemic change are: “end tax havens… banning tar sands … [and] fracking … fossil fuel divestment” (2).

Work together. Climate Action requires both systemic and individual action – although systemic action is going to make the biggest difference in the climate crisis, individual action cannot be ignored. It too has its part to play, and even if in the US, individual action would potentially only result in “carbon emissions … fall[ing] by only 22 percent” (3), that is still a 22% reduction from one of the highest emitting countries globally.

On 3rd April 2022, I had the amazing opportunity of speaking in campaign corner at a local climate action event. This was my first public speaking event, and I am really pleased with how it went – I conveyed what I wanted to say clearly and it was really well received.

I was talking about fast fashion and the devastating impact it’s having on both people and the planet. We need to reassess and radically change how we consume fashion, and the way in which companies produce and sell clothing, promoting longevity over newness.

My speech as follows:

My name is Emily Knock and I am a local climate activist and art student. I am here today to talk about fast fashion, and why it is bad news for people and the planet.

Fashion is a hugely popular method of expression and can be extremely important to people – and especially, I feel, to young people. To us, fashion can be a gateway to rebellion, finding new people and friends, fitting in or standing out. But the way in which we consume fashion is completely broken. A 2019 Government report showed that here in the UK we consume more clothing per capita than any of the other European countries (around 26.7kg per capita). The same report also showed that in 2019, the UK purchased a staggering 1,130,000 tonnes of clothes. These figures are shocking, but they are not the only shocking elements of the fast fashion crisis.

Although many people are completely unaware of it, our consumption of clothing is having a direct impact on the continuation of the climate crisis. According to an article published in the Guardian last year, “69% of our clothes are made up of synthetic fibres, including elastane, nylon and acrylic”. These fibres are all different types of plastic, and therefore derived of oil – reinforcing our reliance on fossil fuels and creating a higher demand for the damaging substance. In fact, the same article found that “textile production consumes 1.35% of global oil production” – a statistic which seems wasteful from the off, but which becomes exponentially more so, when you consider that approximately 300,000 tonnes of clothing is discarded every year, ending up in landfills, or worse being burnt. Not only is the thought of used clothing which could have a second life – either as clothing for someone else, or as upcycled fabric – being burnt or buried in landfill a dreadful one, but the thought of brand-new clothing being destroyed without ever having been used is even worse. The fact that the destruction of unused clothing is now an accepted part of modern consumerist society is one of the first clues to the broken state of the system. If we are already producing vastly more clothing than is needed or even wanted by those who have the means to purchase it, then why is the fast fashion business continuing to grow and the number of clothes produced and discarded continuing to increase, year on year? The fact is that these companies which continue to drive the fast fashion business are owned by and directed by people who perfectly represent the vast imbalance of capitalism; millionaires and billionaires driven by greed for continual economic growth at the expense of all else.

Global Highstreet fast fashion chains, such as H&M, Primark and Zara are heavy contributors to this damaging industry, where the divide of wealth between those who produced the clothes and those who head the companies are extreme. H&M’s former Chairman, Stefan Persson is the 8th richest person in the fast fashion industry (according to an Insider article from 2020), with a wealth of $16.5 billion. Yet almost 100% of garment workers in countries which produce clothes for the company, such as Bangladesh and Vietnam, “work for less than a living wage”, which calls into question the reason that the chairman was able to earn such a large amount of money, whilst the workers in their factories are unable to earn enough to live. This also doesn’t take into account the welfare and wellbeing of the workers in these sweatshops, of which “almost none … [are] certified by labour standards which ensure worker health and safety, living wages, or other labour rights.”. Additionally, the workers in these sweatshops are often using toxic chemicals, which are not only damaging to their own health, but to that of the environment as well. The clothing we wear has been through many iterations and processes before it reaches us in the form of t-shirts and jeans, and these processes are often extremely wasteful and environmentally damaging. Chemicals designed to bleach the materials pure white so that they can then be dyed are extremely toxic – not to mention the dyes themselves. In 2020 CNN reported, “fashion is responsible for up to one-fifth of industrial water pollution”, due to the common practices of dumping the used chemicals straight into the rivers and waterways surrounding the factories. This causes enormous environmental damage: killing ecosystems, leading to sterile environments. Not only are the waterways that the waste materials and chemicals being dumped into living, breathing ecosystems, but they often are also the main source of drinking water for the local people. The consumption of this heavily polluted water can lead to health complications and issues – one resident of a Bangladeshi town heavily impacted by the fast fashion industry reported to CNN: “The kids get sick if they stay here,” “because of the water”. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in 2014 “the fashion industry produces 10% of global carbon emissions every year” – a staggering statistic, especially as, it was recorded that the transport sector contributed 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions. As it is crucial that globally we do everything in our power to stay below 1.5°C warming to prevent irreversible damage to the climate, we desperately need to see a shift in the way the fashion industry operates, placing people and the planet over profit.

So, what can we do to create change and stop this destructive industry from destroying the planet and causing further harm?

• The first thing we can do is very simple: just buy less. It is very easy to be tempted when we are bombarded with advertisements for new clothes: they’re on our phones, in our magazines, online, and surrounding us whenever we go into town. But by asking yourself “do I really need or want this?” when you’re shopping can go some way to reframing your temptation and preventing an impulse purchase which further supports fast fashion brands.
• The second thing to do is to be mindful of where you shop. Do your research, using brilliant apps such as Good On You, which rate fashion brands in terms of their ethics and sustainability to make wiser choices on where you shop. Boycotting brands and their greenwashing is one of the most powerful ways break the chain and show the producers that you want to see change happen.
• Buy second-hand. If you need something specific, why not see if you can find it either in a charity shop, or online via apps such as depop or vinted? You can often find amazing bargains when you shop second hand, as well as being able to find some really amazing and unique pieces.
• Keep the pressure on the big businesses. Sign petitions and open letters. Join campaigns and add your voice to the fight. If enough people speak out, these companies will be forced to change their ways for the better!

Thank you for listening.