Artists and Sustainability Spotlight: David Jacques

In what ways do you feel your work might relate to issues of climate change and sustainability, in the content of the work, its narrative, conceptually or theoretically? How might it speak to or challenge public discourse?

I started out with a painting practice that’s dovetailed with other media along the way (text, moving image, 3D). For some time now collage / montage work has taken centre stage. Everything produced has been research and narrative driven, more often underpinned by contemporary socio-political concerns – Climate Crisis being one integral subject.

The narratives come into realisation through conflating subjects, embedding conceits, splicing fact and fiction and they tend towards being epic in scope by working through processes similar to World Building. Recent projects have focussed on appropriating digital imagery (including data visualisations and info-graphics). Filching pictures from proprietary on-line Stock Vector sites and undermining their intended function. All with a passing nod to the old Situationist technique of Détournement.

Ultimately they’re given to surreal / weird outcomes. Presently shaped by responding to the extremities of Ecological collapse, coupled with the diversionary strategies and marketing imperatives of Greenwashing.

These are some of the discursive entry points for what I’m attempting to contribute and can serve to reveal the influences – the attendant voices that are collectively informing the work.

With regards to the materials, processes and techniques you use to produce your work, are there any practical decisions you make with regard to climate change and sustainability?

Everything I’m producing now has emerged from within a studio setting, dealing with tangible outcomes – physical objects are implicated in the development of the narratives and imagery. From the off though, my art making has been a pretty lean affair, due to costs, storage, waste avoidance and recycling. Any issues around measuring toxicity in materials will check back to observing Health & Safety in the workplace. These might initially be seen as parallel concerns but they’ve all carried through in relation to wider environmental issues.

Either way, knowing of artists past and present who could make something entirely affecting out of next to nothing, due to limited resources or materials – that always came across to me as an admirable pursuit, the done thing.

In general, how do you feel galleries, art spaces, artworks and artists, might be able to contribute, what if any role do you feel they can play in a progressive conversation?

From my perspective as an arts worker and gallery-goer, I’m in with any collaborative / individual projects that might hold with some form of social & political content. I genuinely believe also in the potential of arts & culture to affect change. Consequently, these feel definitively like ‘interesting times’ where solidarity and support should be in good supply for Artists who put themselves out to undertake such commitments. This has of late, led to calls for some galleries & funding bodies to take a long look at themselves – due to their not just abstaining, as much as actively mimicking an authoritarian opposition that’s getting good to censorship.

So maybe some progressive conversations about maintaining progressive conversations might be timely – especially for the sectors’ gatekeepers, lest they lose their moorings.

Are there any tips or advice, anything you have learnt you might want to share with other artists or our audiences?

An all too common one, but try to guard against burnout. Aside from the political situations, trying to contribute through the arts, keeping up the jobs to subsidise that and all the other stuff of life (care work etc.) – look after yourself too. Be prepared, particularly if your practice does involve ongoing critical engagements with Capital, be that through resisting and / or escaping. If operating ‘within and against’ Capital, It can get complicated, keep up a dialogue with your peers.

Survival is the watchword, so I’d point to a text encountered a while back that has remained a reference, I reckon it’s still relevant:

Michel De Certeau ‘The Practice of Everyday Life’

Banner:

• David Jacques, The Cyborg Insects & the Sargasso, the Sargassum & the Entrepreneur (detail), current work in progress.

From left to right, top to bottom:

• David Jacques, Beaufort Sea Phantasmagoric, 2021. ‘Refractivepool’ The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
• David Jacques, Dollhouse project Residency. Art Arcadia, Derry, Ireland, 2022.
• David Jacques, The Inventory of a failed Biotech Start-up, 2020. The Complex, Dublin.