19:00
Artist-educator Inês Neto dos Santos joins artist Sean Roy Parker to share research exploring critiques of environmental trends in contemporary art and histories of ineffective climate actions by UK cultural institutions. This will be framed within a wider conversation on decarbonising art practices and the de-centring of human narratives in climate discourse, including their shared interests in wild food, fermentation and microbes.
This session has been organised by A/WA member Sean Roy Parker. The session is free to attend and will be held on Zoom. Please register by emailing info (at) artworkassociation.org. Registered attendees will receive the link 10 minutes in advance of the discussion.
Sean Roy Parker is a writer, fermentation enthusiast and community gardener based in a semi-rural creative community in Derbyshire, England. He practises slow-tech and low-impact crafts and landwork using leftover consumer debris and natural abundances in anticipation of the post-capitalist transition, and shares through flexible care structures like labour exchange, favours and artswaps. In his ongoing project Fermental Health he writes essays about and leads workshops on the lifecycle of materials, complexities of interspecies responsibility, and problem-solving through collaborative action.
His writing has recently been published in WeedsFeed (organised by Sandra Kosorotova) for Publics, Helsinki (Finland), Hot Potato (edited by Jennifer Cunningham) in UK, and Worry, Collect, Fold, (translated by Max Weinland) for Kunstverein Luneburg (Germany). Sean Roy has delivered public research projects on fermenting with microbes for Liverpool Biennial (UK), anarchist solidarity with peasant farmers at Pols (Spain), and recently returned from a two-month residency at NART (Estonia) where he was artist-gardener at Kreenholm Plants and taught himself basic carpentry.
Inês Neto dos Santos is an artist, educator and researcher born in Lisbon and based in London/Brussels. Her practice moves between performance, installation and social sculpture, investigating food in its intertwined socio-political, cultural and ecological dimensions. Through her work, Inês creates contexts and frameworks to explore collaboration, generosity, care and togetherness. In recent years, she has delved into the practical and metaphorical dimensions of fermentation, as a gateway into our enmeshed, multispecies existence. More recently, Inês’ research has taken her into the study of beans and their soil regeneration qualities, investigating their relationship to systems of supported sustenance and care.
Inês has been a guest lecturer at Kingston University, Brighton University, Royal College of Art and Westminster University. Since March 2021, she has co-lead the online course Food Cosmogonies with artist Nora Silva, arising from their collective The Gramounce, which both artists co-run with sculptor Finn Thomson. The course seeks to propose food as central to the world-making process.