July Installation
Kim Fifield
Infiltrating the Tree (2024)
Oat and wheat grass root systems, oat and wheatgrass paper, wax, algae-based bioplastic, glass, bone, metal, soil, wood, paper
“It is to this new-found resolution to reassert our indivisibility with life, to recognize the obligations incumbent upon us as the most powerful and deadly species ever to exist, and to begin making amends for the havoc we have wrought, that my own hopes for a revival and continuance of life on earth now turn. If we persevere in this new way, we may succeed in making man humane … at last.” Farley Mowat
It is crucial for humans to recognise their responsibility to the natural world and take action to repair damage caused by collective actions and prevent further damage. While demands are made on corporations and manufacturers to be mindful of climate change and have more sustainable practices, there seems to be recalcitrance within individuals to make significant changes in the way they currently live, make and consume so mindlessly. Although most of us care about nature and want to preserve it, there are indications that we aren’t doing nearly enough as individuals to prevent climate change and we actively damage the planet through our daily routines and consumeristic habits. Our destructive behaviours are often at odds with our environmental beliefs and when called out on our contradictions, responses are to either rationalise unsustainable habits, reject evidence environmentalism upholds, or believe that individual action doesn’t matter all that much. However, each of our individual refusals to change accumulates into widespread passivity, preventing the radical transformations essential for environmentalism to be effective.
There is an importance in acknowledging our interconnectedness with all living things and matter that makes up our environment. We all have an obligation to be eco-conscious make positive change. In considering my environmental impact as an artist, my art practice is in a transitory and experimental phase. Influenced by aspects of environmentalism, futures thinking, new materialism, I undertake exploratory methods and processes to challenge my own conditioning around the traditional westernised ways of creating and doing. Within this body of work, I showcase outcomes of material investigations that utilise natural materials such as root systems and algae-based bioplastic and demonstrate some of the processes designed to enable me to work collaboratively with nature. The challenge for me not only lies in producing natural materials, allowing them to have their own agency in the process, finding ways to amalgamate them, and incorporate them into my practice, it includes inciting a shift in mindset to continually challenge adherence to what my perceptions is traditionally and generically acceptable in art. It is challenging at times to not be passive and resistant of transformation and to fall into the easy comfort of what I know and understand.
