action three

Angela, let’s share the experience of nature!

Going beyond the screen.

For this action, a selected word from the stretch selection would initiate going beyond the screen. For me and Angela it meant taking the word “Ecologically Literate” and thinking of how we can share the experience of being in Nature, even though we are not in the same place.

Ecologically Literate might mean exploring nature? Understanding nature? Feeling nature?

The central question that came up in our conversations was: How does nature communicate?

This action basically consisted of two parts. Influenced by one another. Relying on one another. One, was the idea of bringing nature to the place I am right now, even though I am nowhere near real nature. (I won’t risk to define what real nature is though, but speaking of the wild). The other one was sharing the space of nature over geographical and digital borders.

I tried to imagine being in nature. I tried to create an image in my head. What would nature feel like in a material I have at hand? The image of nature was firstly all in my head.

I thought of processes I wouldn’t see anyways in nature. But still these mysteries are there. Talking about cycles I tried to translate carbon, water and photosynthesis into fabric I had at home. How would these components look like in a material language?

Structures within nature – Inspired by coal, a form of carbon
Structures within nature – Inspired by diamonds, a form of carbon
carbon.

How would you see the carbon cycle in nature. Maybe you wouldn’t. But what come to mind by thinking of carbon is coal. The brittle, light, black and rough material that would leave dust on your hands, marks on your paper as everytime the material would scratch over a surface, pieces of it would remain. How could this scratching be translated?

predictable yet unpredictable movements within water
water.

What about the water cycle, how can water be translated? Water is unpredicted and strong, yet sometimes almost still and delicate. It’s communicated with movements – tiny one that can scale up over time. With a “push-and-pull” movement of threads, this movement should be implemented in the fabric.

movements and transformation within nature – inspired by organic shapes, changing appearances.
photosynthesis.

Photosynthesis is a complex cycle to translate. What the initial idea was, to find an own interpretation of it. I think of leaves, of organic structures, of reliances from one to the other when imagining photosynthesis. By using what I had left from the fabric, I tried sewing all round organic shapes together without any structure. The result reminds me a lot of a pile of leaves, a tree crown seesawing in the wind and combines the static and dynamic aspect of nature.

Making visible what is invincible.

picture by Angela @Mount Douglas 2020

When talking via the digital platform Zoom, Angela and me talked a lot about how nature makes us happy, how experiencing nature is all about using our senses. Angela literally took me to Mount Douglas and experienced with me nature. She would take pictures of things, you could only see by going close. By looking at those pictures I really felt like being in the woods, breathing the air and smelling the soil. Together with the previous explorations on fabric, the image of nature got more and more clear.