M - Antennae The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture

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Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey have collaborated since 1990. Their collaborative work includes installation, sculpture, landscape design, photography, performance, film and frequently reflects both architectural and scientific concerns. Since 2003, they have been involved with Cape Farewell and have developed a reputation for growing grass ‘on and inside’ landmarks. Text and Questions by Sonja Britz Ackroyd & Harvey Dilston Grove 2003, grass, clay, water, sound, Commissioned by LIFT in co-production with Café Gallery Projects and Artsadmin, Southwark Park, Bermondsey, London, UK � Dan Harvey and Heather Ackroyd 64 ACKROYD & HARVEY’S GRASS
I t can be argued that culturally and historically the practise of Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey constitutes a bridge between one of the earliest photographic antecedents and contemporary environmental concerns. The daguerreotype came about through artist Louis Daguerre’s search for ways of fixing the transient ‘sun drawings’ of scientist Joseph Niepce. A similar combination of natural phenomena and human in(ter)vention informs the oeuvre of Ackroyd and Harvey. However in addition to an interest in the historical processes of fixing transient images, they also possess a contemporary concern for global warming and the fragility of eco-systems. Although Ackroyd and Harvey are best known for their photographic works made by exploiting the light sensitive properties of grass seedlings, their interests stretch beyond into a wide array of intersecting disciplines: sculpture, photography, architecture, sound and ecology provide forums for discourse on deep ecology. They are both informed by and inform research in genetics; since 1997 they have worked with scientists at IGER (Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research) on the ageing process and thereby the prolongation of their images. “In the greater body of our artwork we play with many materials exploring processes of growth, transformation and decay, and we embrace the transience and ephemeral nature of our materials. Yet somehow the fragility of these chlorophyll apparitions urged us to make moves to preserve them longer.” Their use of grass as a creative medium is not limited to photographic processes; several architecturally related works like Fly Tower, Life Drawing and Dilston Grove have received living ‘skins’ of grass which imbue the inert architectural forms with a regenerating power. However it is their almost compulsive interest in regeneration and loss that drives most of their projects, irrespective of the material employed. For example in Twist, recycled slate metaphorically teams up with the generation of wind and solar power to not only transform an existing landmark, but to provide light. But perhaps their most collaborative and interdisciplinary work has taken place in the extremities of the High Arctic through the Cape Farewell project which seeks to provide a cultural response to the true scale of environmental and climate change through dialogue between artists and scientists; Ackroyd and Harvey have been involved in the programme since its inception in 2003. One of their most compelling works from this collaboration Stranded (2006), addresses most poignantly one of their chief concerns: how and why loss matters. A beached minke whale encrusted with alum crystals iconically reflects on irretrievable extinction. Roland Barthes believed that conceptually, death is implicit in photographs - and that therefore photography is the medium through which we 65 experience the reality of death. How, in your views, may your organic ‘photographs’ relate to Barthes’ view of mortality? It is through the life-force of the living material and the production of the pigment chlorophyll that our photographs exist. We have arrived at a point where we can confer greater ‘life’ on our bio-chemical photographs by killing the grass. Death is inevitably bound up in our process. But the nature of the death has changed. Our living grass photographs were subject to other forces apart from light that corrupted and degraded the image – humidity and air transported spores of mold. By rapidly drying the grass photograph, framing it and conserving it in optimum conditions, the grass and image can be preserved potentially for years. However, we do not ascribe ‘immobility’ to our photographs, and we have had to confront their essential organic nature, the sensitivity of chlorophyll (even when dried) in being exposed to excessive light. The urge to try and arrest the loss of these chlorophyll apparitions has led us to work closely with biochemists and geneticists. How do you stem the inevitable flow of decay when working with a living material? There are steps we have taken to slow it down, to attempt to stabilise change, and this has allowed the work to gain a wider audience. We have shown work in a dried state, in low light, for up to two years in exhibition. In your work Afterlife, the transience of a busy city space metaphorically portrays passing lives. How does the transient medium you have chosen reflect on the individual? We made our first portrait in 1995, Portrait of Ernesta. We decided to make something intimate and traditional. Ernesta was an elderly woman, born in the village where we exhibited the work, and who for the best part of her life had worked in the fields. The small church where the work was shown had lain empty for years. The response to the work was very moving, and the mortality of the subject and the material suddenly came together in a way that made sense to us. It had a ghostly presence, ‘there and not there’. The closer you came towards the image the more it seemed to disperse in front of your eyes. It triggered an emotional response in the viewer and us. Mother and Child (1998) was a very personal work. Our daughter was then 8 months old, and we made the photograph in our apartment above our studio. It was the first time we grew a work for exhibition in the stay-green grass. We dried, framed and freighted it off to the USA for an exhibition about art, science and genetics. It was quite liberating – the work had come of age in one way. Testament (aka portrait of Barbara) (1998) took the intimacy of the portrait and blew it up to a monumental scale. The image was 25 ft x 25 ft. The face became a living landscape. The work was shown in a disused Salvation Army Building, and we came across the
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Antennae Issue 10 - Summer 2009 ISS
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T his issue of Antennae is fully de
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‘Y ou don’t need a Ph.D. in lin
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Simon Starling Kakteenhaus, 2002, V
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BEYOND CLASSIC FIELD BIOLOGY: BATRA
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Brandon Ballengée DFA 83, Karkinos
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Page 37 and 38: E ndangered Species began as a resp
Page 39 and 40: Todd Gilens Top images: Waiting at
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Page 43 and 44: MAINTAINING A GREEN NEWS AGENDA Thi
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Page 47 and 48: CAPE FAREWELL: THE ULTIMATE JOURNEY
Page 49 and 50: David Hinton Director David Hinton
Page 51 and 52: Nathan Gallagher Ryuichi Sakamoto o
Page 53 and 54: Patrick Huse Bølgende landskap, wa
Page 55 and 56: Which brings me back to what origin
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