Artist Talk: Feral Practice
Artist Talk: Feral Practice
23 February 2021
18:30-20:30
Part of the Castlefield Gallery Associates programme of monthly events. Also open to non-members for £3
Taking as a starting point the philosopher Val Plumwood’s assertion that the politics of solidarity is different to the politics of unity, the 2021 Castlefield Gallery Associates programme of artist talks focuses on communicating across boundaries. Whether it’s with non-human nature, with AI, with extra-terrestrials or with other humans, how do we come to a shared understanding across differences of mode of communication, culture, experience, life-form? To what extent is it even possible?
Fiona MacDonald works with human and nonhuman beings as Feral Practice, creating art projects and interdisciplinary events that develop ethical and imaginative connection across species boundaries. Their research draws on artistic, scientific and subjective knowledge practices to explore diverse aesthetics and create suggestive spaces of unknowing nature.
Recent projects include: This Vibrant Turf, German Embassy in London and Goethe Institut 2020, with Sonya Schönberger; Sum Tyms Bytin Sum Tyms Bit, Folkestone Fringe 2020; The Unseeables: a tale of extinction in three birds, film for Scarborough Museum 2020; Myco-Lective an artist collective development programme, with Ama Josephine Budge, Chisenhale Studios 2020; Looking at Bees (film) and Garden to Garden (participation project) with Invisible Dust and South Cliff Gardens, Scarborough 2020; Eyecatchers, National Trust Dunham Massey 2020-21; Ask Somerset’s Plants, radio broadcasts for BBC Somerset and podcasts for Somerset Art Weeks Festival 2019, with Marcus Coates; Phytocentric, performance at LUX London, 2019; Mycorrhizal Meditation, participatory sound work, presented as a digital installation at Taipei Biennale, Governors Island, NYC, Bánkitó Fesztivál, Hungary, Radical Mycology Conference USA, Furtherfield Gallery London, and as live performance at The Bluecoat and UNESCO Paris, 2017-19; Plant Hunting, Invisible Dust for Whitby, 2018; Ask the Wild with Marcus Coates, at Whitechapel Gallery, Tate St Ives, Turner Contemporary, Whitstable Biennale and the Ash Project, and the South London Botanical Institute 2017-18.
@feralpractice
Free to members of Castlefield Gallery Associates; £3 (plus fees) to non-members.
Limited availability. Book now at https://cgafebruary2021feralpractice.eventbrite.co.uk
Image: Actaeon’s Second Look (video still)
This event is part of our regular programme of Castlefield Gallery Associates sessions. Castlefield Gallery Associates is our membership scheme for artists, curators and writers working in contemporary art; more info at https://www.castlefieldgallery.co.uk/associates/
