Bibliotherapy for the Anthropocene.
18.15.
Real joy consists of knowing that human wisdom counts less than the shimmer of beeches in a breeze. As certain as weather coming from the west, the things people know for sure will change. There is no knowing for a fact. The only dependable things are humility and looking.
An extract from Strata 18 of Bibliotherapy for the Anthropocene, performed at Assembly for Gustav Metzger at Kestle Barton, June 2022. Taken from The Overstory, by Richard Powers.
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On Agri/culture 2.0 and Indigeneity.
Everything at the moment is cut through the half dazed state of toddler mornings and baby logistics and this weekend, at Kestle Barton, participating in the excellently choreographed Assembly was no different. It was a shame to not be at Glastonbury, it was a shame not to be at Loveland in nearby Penryn, but by the time Mat Osmond, lecturer, XR activist, illustrator and philosopher poet had finished talking, the heavens opening on the billowing tent in the meadow, I felt certain that I was in the right place. Sat on some straw bales a few miles from the most southerly tip of England with a small gathering of artists, activists, academics and human beings who were all looking for ways to belong, and perhaps also just longing to be.
Paul Chaney and I presented fragments from our practice as a shared history of how we arrived at the ideas we are developing with Kestle Barton under the moniker Agri/culture 2.0, an artists collective comprised of artists, chefs, botanists and academics.
“Do you eat?
Where does the money come from?
- a) Private funds
- b) State funds
- c) Sale of work
- d) Through being employed
Does it matter where your money comes from?
Do you feel responsible towards society?
- a) Are you doing anything about it or not?
If so, what is it that you are doing?
- b) Do you plan to affect society at some time in your future?
If so, will it be in the field of arts?”
The above taken from a flier for a Gustav Metzger talk at Slade School of Art in 1972. He was a radical, gentle but a radical, not one to shy away from subject matters of discomfort, not one to not do something because he was told not to do it… And these questions are still painfully, and increasingly relevant today, the grain silos of Ukraine are filling up, Russian ships blockade the black sea and as Africa begins to starve whilst also beginning to become an open waste site for our electronic waste that we, I, you, me, us are bound up in this. The war with Russia is another war fought on the grounds of global resources, behind the cloak of belonging and ideology. And so at this time of unfurling cliff edges, rolling chaos and socio-ecological collapse we spent some time in a tent asking:
Can artistic practice effect or trigger a slow transition to re-indigeneity?