Letter to Power - Culture Declares Emergency

My response to Culture Declares Emergency’s call to write #LetterstoPower. Everyone is invited to write, share and perform letters to powerful people about the Earth crisis

#LettersToTheEarth #CultureDeclaresEmergency

Dear Boris Johnson, Rt Hon George Eustice and Lord Callanan,

I’m an artist and educator.  I work extremely hard and believe passionately in art and environment, although my net earnings are below the threshold to be eligible for a Self-Employment Grant during the Covid crisis. I have a son, now 21.  You will also have beloved beings in your life for whom you wish the best. 

Brought up in Kenya in the 60’s, I’ve witnessed the dramatic decline in coral reefs on the coast. Tarred clumps of seaweed on beaches, beautiful shells, and magnificent brightly coloured corals are now replaced by tar clumps and the odd manky shell.  The corals are now mostly bleached and dead.   We have degraded our environments, habitats and ecosystems.

We have hunted and slaughtered animals greedily and wastefully, mis-managed land, conquered and built thoughtlessly, violated our oceans and continue to fill up our landfills in gargantuan proportions.  Greedy man needs to stop!

A few years ago, I returned to University to do my MFA.  It was a precious 2 years of hard work and discovery.  I read Planet of Slums by Mike Davis, which reveals horrific realities of our rapidly growing worldwide rich/poor divide.  I was also influenced by a film Our Daily Bread by Nicolaus Gerhalter, concerning factory farming, A Plastic Ocean, which reveals hard-hitting facts: micro plastic is in every single organism in our seas, 80% of plastic from landfills leaks into the ocean and images of albatross chicks dying from bloated stomachs filled with plastic in Midway, near the Pacific gyre.  This was the start of my artivism.

Since then, we’ve experienced traumatic wildfires killing huge populations of wildlife in the Amazon, Australia and now California.  The covid epidemic was caused by disgusting malpractices in wildlife wet markets.  Discarded PPE masks and gloves are now piling up on our beaches. These ongoing events deeply disturb me.  Don’t they disturb you?  I make art related to these pressing issues: human exploitation of nature (of which we are a part) and over-consumption.  Glut, made of reclaimed and discarded materials speaks of loss, death, violence, waste but also vulnerability and renewal.  There is always hope.     

You have the power to effect huge changes in our relationship with nature and ourselves, for the good of all.  ‘All’ meaning from micro to macro.  All includes the tiny diatoms that give us over 30% or our oxygen, now endangered.  All includes our plants, bees, badgers, pigs, pangolins, rhinos, elephants, whales… and humans.  We are all connected.

Please back the Climate & Ecological Emergency bill and place environment at the heart of your policies.

Yours sincerely,

Fiona Campbell

Spring News

Now that the cold spell is over, I feel a Spring update is due.

In my week’s residency at Walcot Chapel, Bath last month as part of my MA, I made a piece (image above) in response to the site, current waste issues, and Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  It was inspired by the plight of 1000’s of albatross chicks dying from stomachs filled with plastic.  Entitled ‘Instead of a Cross, an Albatross’, it is a kind of altarpiece. The steel and copper components echoed the trees and shadows through the window.  Later this year I’m hoping to make work involving some participatory interaction with the public using waste materials.

Ongoing work is also being influenced by a book I’ve just read Planet of Slums by Mike Davis, which reveals horrific realities as a result of our rapidly growing worldwide poverty, rich/poor divide - cruel slumlords, neglect and harrowing deaths.  Factory farming (particularly a film 'Our Daily Bread') is also affecting my thoughts, and the loss of Tilly, our beloved boxer dog, who died at the weekend.  These experimental process pieces are all made from scrap materials.

On a lighter note, I continue to teach All Hallows Prep School students extra-curricular art.  I'm proud to see some of their work selected for the Black Swan Young Open, starting this Saturday.  Last week I ran a workshop with several groups of children Years 4-8 at Hazlegrove Prep School, making a 1.75m flying albatross sculpture out of recycled plastic and wire.

This Saturday, I’ll be running a collaborative workshop with Aya Kobayashi and Stephen Ives as part of BBC’s Get Creative event and Black Swan Arts Young Open exhibition, sponsored by Visual Arts South West.  It will explore the creative process - how to shape an idea into form - experimenting with sculpture and sound technology, combining found/reclaimed materials.

Book soon via Eventbrite (https://goo.gl/SNdgny) - spaces are filling up!

This season, I’ll be showing 2 of my sculptures in the The Cotswold Sculpture Park, The Paddock, Somerford Keynes, Cirencester GL7 6FE http://www.elementalsculpturepark.com/ from 1 April – 30^th September, 10.30am-5pm (closed Tues and Wed),  admission £5.

I've visited a few exhibitions locally including Messums Museum's 'Myth, Material & Metamorphosis' (that's a mouthful!) – fantastical sculpture by Kate McCgwire and Ann Carrington (image below), ceramics and narrative paintings with many surprising gems.  It's always a joy to visit the wonderful tithe barn showing consistently high quality, exciting contemporary art.

At The Edge, Bath, the Jerwood Drawing Prize comprises some great pieces.  Amongst others, I loved the thick roll of paper covered in pencil – like a gleaming sheet of metal.

I’ve been invigilating at Hauser & Wirth Somerset for ‘The Land We Live In - The Land We Left Behind’.  It’s been good to be able to keep returning to study the exhibits (numerous artworks/artefacts of interest).  I’ve also managed to sell a couple of small pieces through the Honest Shop - part of the show.  I’m doing a talk for Hauser & Wirth's Sound Bites programme on Beatrix Potter’s drawing of fungal spores entitled ‘Absidia’, Thursday 29 March, 2pm. Come along, it’s free!

Happy springtime!

Instead of a Cross, an Albatross

I am relieved that the research-based module 4 of my MA is now over.   I read alot of books - 'Materiality: Documents of Contemporay Art' is a brilliant eye-opener to concepts on matter and process.  I now have a fairly clear run until September to work through ideas and create for my final MA show.  I have been working outside for the first time since last summer in the February sunshine. Though cold, it has been wonderful to spread out and get on with new work.

I have become fixated by the plight of sea creatures, dying in large numbers from trash heap gyres in our oceans. I am particularly disturbed by images of Albatross chicks taken by Chris Jordan, a photography initiative at Midway, USA. Their stomachs get bloated full of plastic objects - sharp shards, lighters and bottle tops, fed by their parents mistaking the floating objects for morsels of fish. Their insides reveal a microscopic view of our trash.  My new piece is a response to this terrible reality, to be shown in a residency at Walcot Chapel, Bath, later this month (12-18 Feb).  I am linking the myth of the albatross in Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner (‘instead of a cross, the albatross’) with ideas of the crucifixion, using found objects including old steel nails, rope and plastic.

I had to make a 2 minute video of an artist between 1900-49 to present as part of Dexter Dalwood seminars at Bath Spa Uni.  I decided to make one about Graham Sutherland's Green Tree Form: Interior of Woods.  For a first film, it turned out ok, thanks to my son Jack for his technical help putting it together.  Sutherland’s thorn series brought to mind the association of nails/thorns with the crucifixion for my new piece.

A couple of my pieces (below) will be shown at the Elemental Sculpture Park near Cirencester, Gloucestershire (The Paddocks, Somerford Keynes, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 6FE from 1st April to 30th September, 10:30 - 17:00, closed Tuesday and Wednesday, last admission 16:00).  Do visit if you are in the area.

I have started invigilating at Hauser & Wirth’s The Land we Live in – The Land We Left Behind.  The exhibition is a narrative about our relationship with the rural, featuring an incredible selection of artists including Archimboldo, Beatrix Potter (a lovely drawing of fungal spores which prompted me to investigate her innovative work on lichen and fungi), Samuel Palmer, Henry Moore, Mark Dion.  An intriguing show and so comprehensive, it is worth several visits.  As part of the exhibition there is an Honest Shop where local artisans can sell their work (£20 max).  I have some small copper items for sale – enameled lichen forms, keyrings, incense holder, balls and hearts!

Yesterday I visited Dorothy Cross’s Glance exhibition at The New Art Centre, Roche Court, near Salisbury. I was amazed by her carved marble Bed with its gently creased sheets and soft-looking pillow hollowed by an absent head. She manages to turn a traditional medium into something very contemporary.  Her body fragments - dangling feet and hand casts are also very beautiful.

Here's to more February sunshine!

Walcot Chapel Residency

Finally completed my piece for the Walcot Chapel MA residency after a week making and installing.  There's lots of other work too - come along tomorrow 6-8pm for our Open Eve!

For more information about my MA work visit: fionacampbellblog