This is a free workshop but places are limited. To book please email: material-thinking@aber.ac.uk
Artist and educator Eileen Hutton will facilitate a workshop on soil chromatography. This alternative photography process creates a ‘soil portrait’ on light sensitive filter paper that is both formally beautiful and a useful way to assess the soil for organic matter, biological diversity, minerals and humus. Participants in the workshop will learn how to gather and identify local soils, how to make soil chromatograms and how to sense soil through a series of eco-phenomenological prompts and exercises. During the workshop we will discuss the connections between ecologically driven art practices and the application of scientific and phenomenological methodologies to create art work.
The workshop has been developed as a result of the artist’s yearlong residency The Soil Project at Butler Gallery (IE) and is an extension of her practice and research which aims to generate reciprocal relationships with the more than human world and in the process create replicable models for informed ecological actions. A member of the Ecoart Network, Hutton is a contributing author to Ecoart in Action, a collection of essays and provocations on pedagogy and ecoarts practice. Based in Ireland, she has exhibited both nationally and internationally and is currently a member of Roots for the Future: a Radical Climate Thinking group in association with Project Arts Centre.
The workshop..
Video documentation by Mike Varney, Creative Arts Student, Aberystwyth University
