Creative Exchange: Catalyst

About the Environment and Sustainability Institute

The Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI) is situated on the Penryn Campus, Cornwall and is part of the University of Exeter.

The ESI leads interdisciplinary research into solutions to problems of environmental change, with the aim to enhance people's lives by improving their relationships with the environment. Their Creative Exchange programme facilitates collaboration between University of Exeter researchers, community partners and creative practitioners who engage with issues of environment and sustainability in their work. The programme also aims to support Cornwall’s creative industries and stimulate opportunities for public engagement with ESI research.

For a decade the programme has brought together artists and academics at for almost a decade. Offering a platform for creative conversations around ecology, environment and climate change, the programme has resulted in a diverse and fascinating series of collaborative exhibitions within the ESI, an interdisciplinary centre leading cutting-edge research on the University’s Cornwall Campus.

About Catalyst

In 2020 - 21 the programme was halted due to the global pandemic. They used the opportunity to look back at past Creative Exchange projects and to create this virtual exhibition celebrating the rich diversity of the collaborations which the programme has fostered. Artists and creative practitioners who have participated in the programme were asked to reflect on how their practices have developed since their Creative Exchange collaborations and invited to exhibit their new work, sharing how they have engaged with the universe. The result is Catalyst, an exhibition showcasing the work of twelve artists and creative teams, which explores how the Creative Exchange has acted as a catalyst for change.

This diverse collection of stories and artworks mirrors the range of research carried out at the ESI. Each work questions our interconnection and dependence on natural and social systems, including organisms on the Antarctic seabed by Roseberry and Slack, lesser spotted flower crab spiders under ultraviolet light by Tim Cockerill, mathematical models of the luminous envelope by Gabrielle Hoad and a 5-channel sound performance next to an ancient standing stone alongside a satellite dish by Sara Bowler. The exhibition also includes a film documenting climate crisis affecting Cornwall’s coast by Rame Peninsular Beach Care, a chance to download The Art and Energy Collectives’ AR app to create a moth for a mass installation at Cop 26 and the opportunity to listen to Bram Arnold Thomas’s layered remix of his ecological podcasts during the ‘lost summer’ of 2020.

The exhibition was originally shown in a virtual studio space created to resemble the real Creative Exchange Studio that sits within Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI).

Tim Cockerill

DR. TIM COCKERILL is an entomologist, broadcaster and photographer. Specialising in macro-photography, he champions organisms that are often overlooked because of their size. In 2020 he collaborated with Dr Elze Hesse at the ESI to explore research into swarming behaviour in bacterial colonies at post-industrial sites through a series of stunning macro-photographic images. The resulting work was shown on the University of Exeter Arts and Culture website in an online exhibition called 'Should I Stay or Should I Go?'. Since his participation in the Creative Exchange his bacteria images have been used by a number of organisations, including Atria University, Bengaluru, India.

The Art and Energy Collective

THE ART AND ENERGY COLLECTIVE is a group of artists, makers, technologists, academics and others who collaborate, share learning and forward the aesthetics of energy generation technology. In 2018 they worked with Dr Katie Shanks and the renewable energy team at the ESI, to develop the aesthetics of solar photovoltaics (PV) creating a series of artworks that generate electricity, which were exhibited at the ESI in September 2019. Inspired by conversations with Katie and the ESI team, The Art and Energy Collective have gone on to explore the mysteries of moths' attraction to light and the detrimental effect of some lighting methods at night for moth populations.

Sara Bowler and Elizabeth Masterton

SARA BOWLER and ELIZABTH MASTERTON worked with academics and students at the ESI who were conducting research on the Lizard Peninsula's Goonhilly Downs in 2014. The project provided an opportunity for academics and other specialists to engage members of the public interested in sharing and exploring diverse bodies of knowledge associated with the Downs, and served as a temporary centre of cultural activity designed to generate a lasting legacy. Their Creative Exchange sought to make opportunities for new and innovative ways of disseminating research findings and debates, encouraging wider experiential understanding of complex issues. As part of 'Catalyst' the artists will be exhibiting work generated as part of Goonhilly Village Green.

Thresholds, 2019

Film © Sara Bowler

Conceived as a five-channel, surround sound piece reflecting ideas of boundaries – horizontal, vertical and temporal, the piece grew from research into the history of Goonhilly Downs and the neighbouring estate of Trelowarren, cited in the Domesday Book and in the hands of the Vyvyan family for over 600 years. The work incorporates the tonal sound of perfect fifths; archival recordings of early space satellites; celestial sounds of lightning strikes on earth & geomagnetic pulses from the Poles; field recordings made at Trelowarren and Goonhilly; and Neil Armstrong's words as he stepped onto the moon in 1969.

It encouraged people to linger, to rest against the Dry Tree Menhir, an ancient standing stone and to take in their surroundings – an expansive ancient heath bordered by dozens of space age satellite dishes and several Bronze Age barrows. A site where people have gathered for millennia but never permanently settled.

Rosie Fierek

ROSIE FIEREK is a Cornwall based artist and ceramicist. In 2017 she collaborated with former researcher Dr. Gloria Salmoral and Dr Xiaoyu Yan, Senior Lecture in Energy and Environment, from the ESI on 'Resilient local food systems in the Tamar Valley', a Creative Exchange which sought to disseminate knowledge of how local food systems function, in particular to raise awareness of relevant linkages between soil health, water and food production.

Bridget Roseberry and Katrina Slack

In 2020 painter Bridget Roseberry and painter and sculptor Katrina Slack collaborated with Professor James Scourse and researcher Alejandro Roman-Gonzalez from the University of Exeter on 'Rare Earth', an immersive online exhibition inspired by an Antarctic research expedition taken by the academics in 2019. The work produced by Roseberry and Slack explored microscopic worlds in the ocean and one the ice whilst simultaneously drawing attention to the effects of climate change on the Antarctic environment.

(Left image) Tiny, fleshy, delicate and embryo-like creature, 2020

40 x 30 cm (h x w)

Oil paint and mediums on paper © Bridget Roseberry

This painting is part of my 'Lockdown Heads' series, was made when I first bought myself some Yellow Lake oil paint, which became an obsession for a while. Pulsing and fleshy, it reminds me sometimes of a human organ, but also of microscopic strange creatures, in my imagination, living in the sediment at the bottom of the Ocean.

(Right Image) A raindrop full of algae, 2020

40 x 30 cm (h x w)

Oil paint, natural pigment and mediums on paper

Part of a series which I call ‘Lockdown Heads’, this painting was a process which started with mixing paint and mediums and made a journey from landscape to object, through combining marks, using different tools and found objects and pigments.

After our Rare Earth exhibition was cancelled, and subsequently during the first lockdown, I found myself needing to make quite a different kind of image and made a long series of paintings which appear very object-like, fantasy creatures, strange ‘lockdown heads’ with very different characters. This new approach is still abstraction, and very much influenced by what I discovered in the Rare Earth paintings using the mud and sediment as a medium In hindsight many of these also remind me of finding tiny creatures in the Antarctic sediment, under the microscope, when we visited Alejandro and James in the university laboratory. I think that was a high point for us in the collaboration, and it really fired my imagination.

I regard myself as an abstract painter, although my work is inspired by sensual involvement with landscape and my paintings often read as landscapes or figurative objects. I like the playful freedom that abstraction and experimenting with paint and mediums allows, but my paintings surprise and delight me when objects and memories are revealed in the process. I listen to music all the time when I’m working, I find musical form inspires me when making decisions bringing marks, textures and colour. I’m also fascinated by geology, texture and erosion in landscape.

Ocean Floor Cocktail

96 x 107 x 12 cm (h x w x d)

Sculptural Painting © Katrina Slack

After working on the Rare Earth project, I continued to explore ways of abstracting and interpreting underwater landscapes, particularly the Antarctica Marine Benthic communities (organisms that live on, in, or near the seabed). I experimented with a range of materials I had to hand builders expanding foam, corks, cocktail sticks and wood. Using these materials, I was able to re-imagine an ancient volcanic ocean floor with its contours, ridges, fissures, vents and soft sediments. I represented the Benthic Fauna by emulating shapes and forms of sea urchins.

As my piece is representational, I painted the Benthic Fauna forms in white reflecting the white of the melting ice above whilst, for the sea floor, I used muted dark colours to represent the revealing of the landscape as the ice melts. The choice of colours links the above to the below, for, as rising temperatures melts ice, so the Benthic communities change.

Cornwall Climate Care

Cornwall Climate Care, originally part of Rame Peninsula Beach Care collaborated with Dr Matthew Witt from the ESI on 'All Washed Up', a 2014 project exploring beach waste. This culminated in an exhibition at the ESI which featured a variety of artworks by local artists created from different kinds of beach waste and a film 'The Big Pick' made by filmmaker Bryony Stokes and producer Claire Wallerstien. As part of the collaboration, artist Liz Franklin also created a large abstract mural from beach waste for display in the ESI atrium, with help from a group of 100 school children. For 'Catalyst' Bryony and Claire will be exhibiting portraits from their current film project ‘Cornwall’s Climate Stories’. All the episodes in this eight-part series will include films on themes such as transport, fishing, energy and housing presenting the facts, but also showcasing the positive and often groundbreaking work going on in Cornwall to tackle the climate crisis.

Josie Purcell

Josie Purcell is a photographer who uses alternative photographic processes to create curiosity and spark conversation about diverse environments and the human impact on them. In 2017 she collaborated with Dr. Grace Twiston-Davies from the ESI on the'6000 Flowers: Farms for AONBees Pollinators’ project. Together they explored the importance of bees to human existence and the need for agriculture to support them via informed land management practices in Cornwall. Since her collaboration with the ESI Josie predominantly works on environmental issues and has created the Photopocene podcast to share the imagery of other eco-conscious photo artists in an audio way.

Harena Now #1, 2019

84.1 x 59.4 x 0.5 cm (h x w x d)

Unfixed lumen & Digital. Created with expired black and white photo paper & exposed in shoreline using UV © Josie Purcell

My 'Harena Now' series considers the global sand crisis, a still lesser-known environmental issue that has huge consequences, not only for the environment but human life too. Sand mafias actually exist and people have been murdered due to sand. This work is created with black and white photo paper and exposed along the shoreline. It speaks to the thin line between wonder and despair in relation to the human impact on natural resources.

The work for my ESI commission used the anthotype and cyanotype photographic processes. The juice from flowers and plants create anthotype images, which cannot be permanently fixed. I felt this reflected the peril bees face - if we don’t look after them, they will fade away. Cyanotype produces vivid blues. It is also one of the most environment friendly photo processes in that the exposed solution can be washed out and fixed in water, even the ocean. This spoke to our considered use of chemicals and the balancing act we must manage to ensure our impact on nature does not become catastrophic.

My Creative Exchange experience has cemented the direction of my practice, including my MA in Photography (which I gained with distinction in 2018). Underpinning all my artistic work is the desire to create in a way that supports or enhances our natural world. One of the best parts of the commission has been the fact that Grace and I have become friends. She has supported me at exhibitions and we have attended a bee-related event, while I have shared cyanotype printing with her. Almost all of my new work since 6000 Flowers relates to environmental issues.

Bram Thomas Arnold

Dr Bram Thomas Arnold is an artist who started with walking and kept going into performance, drawing, installation, writing, academia and broadcasting. In 2019 Bram worked with Professor Caitlin DeSilvey from the University of Exeter's Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI) on ‘A Transect for Trelowarren’ which saw him draw a line from the ESI in Penryn to the Trelowarren estate near Helston, Cornwall. Working collaboratively with a team of researchers, including ecologists, geologists and cultural geographers at the ESI, Bram walked and talked with them along this line finding out more about their individual areas of research and gathering data to inform a process of ‘wilding’ on parts of the estate. Work from this collaboration was show at the Eden Project from Sep 2019-Jan 2020 as part of their exhibition ‘Unbounded: Contemporary Art Practices in Cornwall’.Since then Bram has continued to collaborate with the ESI, the Trelowarren Estate and University of Exeter's Arts and Culture team.

Towards Field Station (Catalyst Remix), 2021

24 x 36 cm (h x w). C-type print flush mounted on aluminium © Bram Thomas Arnold

Produced in the claustrophobic isolation of Lockdown number 3, this piece is a multilayered, condensed and expanded remix of three podcasts and associated images produced over the lost summer of 2020, between Lockdown 1 and Lockdown 2.

Hugo Glasier

Hugo Glasier is a photographer, caver and mine explorer who collaborated with Laura Newsome, Carmen Falagan Rodriguez and graduated PhD student Tomasa Sbaffi at the ESI. His 2020 Creative Exchange 'Hidden in Plain Sight' documented the hidden microbial life that inhabits Cornwall’s underground environments and explored how microbial life contributes to the formation of unique rock and mineral structures. The resulting exhibition at the ESI featured a series of photographic prints of the mining environments and micrographs of microbes and film samples, revealing the structure, pattern and colour of subsurface life.

Alison Harper and Sarah Chave

Dr Alison Harper is an environmental textile artist and Dr Sarah Chave is a teacher and honorary researcher at the University of Exeter whose work includes art methodologies and practices. In 2018 they collaborated on 'Deep materialism and care-taking: a study of material relationships for the 21st Century', an exploration into the human use and abuse of the material world. Since their Creative Exchange they have continued to support each other in individual and joint activities, sharing ideas, generating new thinking and creating individual and collaborative work. They have co-authored a chapter for a possible book on 'Art in the era of Ecocide'. Sarah has recently published 'Sustainable and Democratic education: Opening spaces for complexity, subjectivity and the future' (Routledge 2020).

Chris Thorn

Chris Thorn is an engineer, painter and radiographer with an expertise in high resolution radiography to create X-Ray image compositions or ‘Kaleidographs’. He joined the ESI as the inaugural Creative Exchange Affiliate in February 2013 collaborating with ESI conservation ecologists Dr Richard Inger and Prof Brendan Godley. Through their inspiring conversations Chris became acutely aware of the pressures on wildlife and the fishing industry, and how ESI scientists are seeking to redress the balance. He created paintings, mixed media, X-ray images and an installation entitled ‘$20 per lb’. Subsequently he became convinced that X-ray imaging should become predominant in his work. Gaining international commissions and awards for his X-ray art, he was awarded the Wellcome Image Award in 2014.

X-RAY FOXG , 2020

22 x 53 cm (h x w). X-ray image composition © Chris Thorn

X-ray image of Digitalis or foxglove, multi-faceted to encourage the viewer to recall early memories from the magic of the kaleidoscope. Maybe the inadvertent ‘cameo’ appearance of (Purple) deer stags and penguins might be strange bedfellows, but they are all welcome in my world.

Gabrielle Hoad

Gabrielle Hoad uses photography, moving image, sound, text and live actions to create works that are highly responsive to site and context. In 2014 she collaborated with ESI Affiliate and Senior Lecture in Physical Geography, Dr Jonathan Bennie on 'Foreign Soil', an exploration of micro-climates in the South West which highlighted the inevitable disconnect between speculative microclimate data and specific day-to-day weather data. Inspired by her collaboration at the ESI, Garbielle has gone onto explore a similar disconnect which occurs in the attempt to make physical representations of mathematical equations.

'The Luminous Envelope' is a photographic series made in response to a collection of 19th century teaching aids held at Oxford University Mathematical Institute. These rendered equations as plaster models.

The photographic images shown here were inspired by a model of Fresnel’s Wave Surface, which refers to the propagation of light in an optically biaxial crystal. The photographs make use of polarisation (frequently used in the study of crystals) to dissolve solid objects into zones of coloured light.

New objects such as cubes, cones and octahedrons were produced from folded cellophane. Like Oxford’s 19th century teaching aids, they had definable edges, volume and weight, as well as an element of permanence. Once photographed through polarising filters, however, they appeared to inhabit a more liminal state: their residual forms slipping into washes of colour. This sense of ongoing, back-and-forth transformation perhaps reflects the strange illegitimacy of solid objects (models) standing in for mathematical equations.

As in ‘Foreign Soil’, the related Creative Exchange project, models emerge as useful, but imperfect, representations.