International Environmental Arts Research Network

The International Environmental Arts Research Network is an online forum for international researchers to share ideas, methodologies and concerns within environmental arts practice in order to critically engage and reflect in response to environmental concerns and climate change. Conversations and discussions may result in future projects, such as exhibitions, publications and jointly funded research bids. The network welcomes postgraduate students.

Artistic research practice has a unique capacity to offer crucial insights informing our understanding of environmental challenges. The reflexivity inherent in arts research along with an emphasis on expressive communication as outcome offers significant scope for bringing crucial yet complex relationships between vulnerable species, human action, and climate change to wider appreciation among general audiences and key stakeholders. The network seeks to expand on and question how art can contribute to an understanding of contemporary environmental issues and challenges.

The network organises a series of symposia and research seminars to bring together our international community of researchers and postgraduate students to share common research interests and develop new projects.

It has developed from the longstanding research group Land/Water and the Visual Arts at the University of Plymouth.

Partners:

HDK Valand, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Contact person: Professor Tyrone Martinsson

Leiden University, The Netherlands
Contact person: Dr Maartje van den Heuvel

Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University, New Zealand
Contact person: Jonathan Kay

University of Plymouth, UK
Contact person: Dr Heidi Morstang

Visiting Speaker – Jonathan Kay

Wednesday 18 January 2023
10–11.30
Roland Levinsky Building Lecture Theatre, University of Plymouth

Jonathan Kay will discuss how he utilises a range of photographic technologies, from historical processes to latest contemporary technologies to interrogate glacial landscapes. He will also discuss how a collaboration between art and science might facilitate an intimate connection that is based on both factual and poetic modes of communicating.

Jonathan Kay is a photographic artist and lecturer in photography living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand. His practice focuses on blurring the boundaries of art and science to render the unseen and challenge notions of landscape. His methodology employs photographic interventions within the landscape that are site specific and responsive. Exhibitions include Negative Mass (Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland), WAI - Manga Maha, Awa Kotahi | One River, Many Streams, (Aratoi -Wairarapa Museum of Art and History) Masterton and Nothing but Dust, (Wellington Museum). He completed a MFA with distinction at Massey University, Wellington, in 2013.

Symposium III: International Environmental Arts Research Network

Friday 23 September 2022, 09:00–11:30*
Theme: River Deep
Location: Gelderlandfabriek, Culemborg and online (Zoom link will be sent after registration and prior to the symposium)
Access: Free
Language: English

Like in many places in the world, the water level of Dutch rivers has never dropped so low. This is also the case with the river Lek: a branch of the Rhine, where this symposium is physically located. There are artists worldwide who care about the changes that are happening in nature and who express this in their work.

At the River Deep symposium, artists and curators/researchers from different countries will show art and tell what is current in their work in the field of rivers and more generally climate change.

The symposium is organised in collaboration with the LekArt foundation, Leiden University and the International Environmental Arts Research Network: a network of artists, curators and scientists from various countries, including England, Sweden and New Zealand.

Symposium II: International Environmental Arts Research Network

Perspectives: glacial landscapes within contemporary photographic practices

21 April 2021, 08:00–11:00 (UK), 09:00–12:00 (Sweden), 21:00–00:00 (New Zealand)

How do we intervene photographically in the Arctic and Antarctic regions? The polar history has many examples of photographers and artists travelling to the Arctic region and Antarctica. Due to environmental change, the last two decades has seen a rise in Art and Science expeditions to these regions.

During this event we will unravel various artistic research approaches by some of our network researchers who have worked specifically with glacial landscapes. We will encourage a discussion around the purpose of these practices and highlight why it may be of significance to our understanding of climate change, and how we can further act on positive actions.