Tag: nature
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A Pervert’s Guide to the Apocalypse
The bold white title reads “Cool Photos”. I dutifully open the email to find yet another link to yet another photo essay from yet another intrepid, probably amateur photographer who has schlepped their medium format through the crumbling halls of Detroit. Or was it Pripyat again? Or some (now) generic computer generated image of the…
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The Undomesticated Chanterelle
The Cantharellus cibarius, most commonly known as chanterelle, is one of the most celebrated wild edible mushroom in the world. You would think by now that this prized fungus, which can be collected in the hundreds in certain wooded areas, would be commercially cultivated. But it is not. In fact, only twenty edible fungal species…
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On a Headland of Lava Beside You
Joanna Kirk and I are both artists living in Blackheath and have become good friends over time as our children are the same age, friends and at school together. This has led to frequent conversations with us sharing books (for example Karl Ove Knausgaard’s) and views on exhibitions and artists, on newspaper articles and TV…
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The Death of a Beautiful Subject
The Death of a Beautiful Subject is a multidisciplinary project by artist Sophy Rickett, which takes as its starting point a series of butterfly photographs taken by the artist’s father. As in previous projects, Rickett examines issues around collaboration and ownership, and encounters between humans, each other, and the natural world. Quiet and poignant and…
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The Decomposition of Cetaceans
Working as a whale-watching guide offers many perks. I get to see live whales regularly, photograph them, and share the joy of encountering these giants. Over the last two years I have dedicated much time to working with cetaceans in Húsavík, northern Iceland. But there is one thing that can dampen the experience for many…
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Hvalreki
Hvalreki is an installation piece, which explores and interrogates human relationships with whales through their residual bones. The work began through a personal interest in the history that links us humans to the mammals that inhabit the sea. It came about after spending four months in Húsavík, Northern Iceland; exploring the research done by whale…
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Binbag, Pavement Tree, Chainlink Fence
Dandelions poking through a chainlink fence; brambles sprouting from an unknown corner; a binbag gashed open, spewing out its contents; scattered leaves; a dead fly. Mimei Thompson paints the everyday and the overlooked. She imbues commonplace subject matter with a sense of strangeness. She works fast, with transclucent oil paint on very smooth, white, non-absorbent…
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Red Snow
Albedo is the fraction of solar energy reflected from the Earth back into space. The word stems from Latin and means whiteness. Ice, with snow on top of it, has a very high albedo. Red snow describes an area of ice polluted, as it were, with red algae. Red algae is typically a mix of…
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Connswater
Our river wasn’t a clean river, a mountain stream, a babbling brook, or a silver girl. It was a filthy river, a city river, forsaken, neglected. Long gone, the glory days, when it was thick with trout and where, according to my father, King Billy watered his horses on his way to the Boyne;…
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Inca Doves
Is it odd to say I thought of you as I pulled a dead dove from the swimming pool? Spine up to God, floating lightly with its bright beak face down. Streams of red outlined the strange sight. I gently scooped him up, ignorant of sex, his eyes closed so gently as if in…
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Our Wings
Fair is fair, and clear is clean. Clean air is clear, clear air is clean, though I fathom the factories fair fouled it up. Particulate, exudate, aerosols, mud, benzene, dioxins, DDT, blood. Filthy factory runoff grimes up our groundwater. Oozes thin. Gurgles thick. We slide and we slip on greased oilcloth earth. Our dirt is…