My Honours project will explore sustainability, and the effects of the human population on wider ecological systems.
My main area of research is global food systems. For Honours I plan to focus particularly on issues that are relevant within Aoteaoroa. Climate destabilisation, endangered native species, the ozone layer, introduced pests, polluted river ways, the declining bee population: I see all of these as interconnected parts of the same complex and fascinating problem. Through art research I will explore how these ramifications are linked with the agriculture and horticulture industries, and the decisions we make at the supermarket.
So far this sounds like a proposal for a Bioscience project. However, these are the things I research in my spare time, so at this stage they simply form a conceptual foundation that I’m passionate about, a sort of compost for material/art outputs to grow from.
Instead of predicting what form the art output will take, I anticipate that it will be a process-based discovery and the appropriate media will emerge over the year ahead. My practice strays between illustration, painting, printmaking, design, bookmaking, sculpture, textiles, interventions and participatory practice.
Art that focuses on issues of sustainability doesn’t have a certain look, in the way that abstract expressionism or Pop Art is easily and quickly recognised, but rather reflects a series of ideas about the role of art in the environment and in society. (’“Sustainability” Has Become a Growing Focus of Artists’ (and Art Schools’) Attention’, Huffington Post, 04/11/2012)
