An evening of talks with an exhibition
Curated by Aphra Shemza
Chaired by Laura Pando, Julie’s Bicycle
Speakers: Tilly Hogrebe, Bowarts & the artists Oskar Krajewski, Becky Lyon & Aphra Shemza
Curated by Aphra Shemza
Chaired by Laura Pando, Julie’s Bicycle
Speakers: Tilly Hogrebe, Bowarts & the artists Oskar Krajewski, Becky Lyon & Aphra Shemza
This year has seen global demonstrations about the ecological climate crisis. Our generation is said to be the last that has the power to prevent catastrophic global warming, yet what can we do to make a difference? Our June event will look to art as a forum where future possibilities can be explored and provide a discursive setting to explore these subjects in a media art context.
If we think of art as a tool with which artists are able to explore and raise questions about our human existence, the lives we lead and the society we inhabit, then media artists are right at the forefront of this discourse. They work with technology, innovation and look towards the future but are forced into a dialogue with our throw-away consumer culture as part of their process. Radical Ecology invites a number of key artists and thinkers exploring climate change, ecology, sustainable practice and conservation within their work.
There will be an exhibition that will accompany the talks program and we will begin the evening with a series of short talks from the speakers. Tilly Hogrebe from Bowarts will speak about a collaborative project formed on the Accelerator program with Julie’s Bicycle exploring how to support artists and their studios to be more sustainable. Oskar Krajewski will discuss his complex recycled creations, Becky Lyon will explore a future where biology and technology are combined and Aphra Shemza will speak about her Arts Council funded project Solutions for a Sustainable Art Practice. Following on from this Laura Pando will host a panel discussion where together we will explore what artists can do to be mindful of their environmental impact, consider its conservation and look at how art can be used as a tool to imagine alternative futures.
If we think of art as a tool with which artists are able to explore and raise questions about our human existence, the lives we lead and the society we inhabit, then media artists are right at the forefront of this discourse. They work with technology, innovation and look towards the future but are forced into a dialogue with our throw-away consumer culture as part of their process. Radical Ecology invites a number of key artists and thinkers exploring climate change, ecology, sustainable practice and conservation within their work.
There will be an exhibition that will accompany the talks program and we will begin the evening with a series of short talks from the speakers. Tilly Hogrebe from Bowarts will speak about a collaborative project formed on the Accelerator program with Julie’s Bicycle exploring how to support artists and their studios to be more sustainable. Oskar Krajewski will discuss his complex recycled creations, Becky Lyon will explore a future where biology and technology are combined and Aphra Shemza will speak about her Arts Council funded project Solutions for a Sustainable Art Practice. Following on from this Laura Pando will host a panel discussion where together we will explore what artists can do to be mindful of their environmental impact, consider its conservation and look at how art can be used as a tool to imagine alternative futures.

Radical Ecology Press Release.pdf | |
File Size: | 586 kb |
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Images by Sophie le Roux
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Exhibition
Featuring artworks from the artist speakers of the evening, the Radical Ecology exhibition demonstrates how new media artists can work with sustainable materials and ecological concepts within their work. The exhibition explores the possibility of alternative futures in the face of our current ecological crisis.
About the Speakers
Aphra Shemza
Curator & artist
https://www.aphrashemza.co.uk/
Aphra Shemza is a multimedia artist exploring the impact and legacy of technology on our world. She has recently been awarded the Developing Your Creative Practice Grant from the Arts Council England for her project entitled Solutions for a Sustainable Arts Practice. Working with abstraction, interactivity and light, Shemza combines traditional sculpting techniques with the latest technology to create her work. Shemza’s work is multidisciplinary making reference to Modernism with a renewed optimism.
In 2018 she launched www.art-ology.co.uk, a peer resource for artists who wish to be mindful of their environmental impact with the support of SPACE. Her research about sustainability in the media arts has been published by the Electronic Visual Arts conference in London, and she now sits on their organising committee.
In 2016 she co-founded FLUX Events, a peer networking charity for artists working at the intersection of art, technology and science. Shemza co-curates the yearly programme of talks, exhibitions and events and oversees the day to day running of the charity.
Laura Pando Martinez, Managing Director Julie’s Bicycle
Chair
https://www.juliesbicycle.com/
Laura has led funded research projects focused on behavioural change and business circularity. Laura joined Julie's Bicycle in 2016 and holds an overview of the Arts Council Environmental Programme, focused on working with cultural organisations on how to understand and improve their environmental performance and to share knowledge and best practice around sustainable solutions. She manages the strategic development of this partnership and is involved in the delivery of workshop sessions and networking opportunities as well as the development of practical resources and tools for the sector to implement environmental sustainability. She also supports the overall strategy and delivery of Julie's Bicycle's consultancy portfolio and Julie’s Bicycle’s operations.
Oskar Krajewski
Artist
http://artofok.com/
Born in Lodz, Poland in 1979. Living and working in London since 2002. Through drawing, painting and photography, Oskar arrived at his biggest passion to date - sculpting with rubbish, found and reclaimed materials. He gives new life and shape to unwanted objects, dressing it with light and sound. He is a founder of an art platform called Art-Recyclism, inviting like minded people to collaborate and to show their recycled artworks. Recyclism is a very current theme and hot topic in the world right now. It is an art platform to show the world how to transform our waste into beautiful and useful objects. This is not something new, artists have been working with reclaimed materials for the past century but it has never been more relevant than now. Oskar’s interest in art is human nature, sustainability and sci-fi, the latter being a unique style for conveying the message and intrigue the viewer. His latest project which is coming soon, is about humanity venturing to colonise Mars.
Becky Lyon
Artist
https://www.elasticfiction.co/
My current research is centred around ‘the future of life’ in a world where biology and technology combine - a ’technobiocology’. How might humans deliberately or inadvertently affect the future evolution and adaptation of life forms? I combine scientific research + fiction + materials experimentation as a means of modelling accelerated evolutions via artefacts, object assemblies and moving image. My output serves as stimulus for open discourse on our current and future relationships with nature. I am fascinated by the creativity and resilience inherent in nature in the face of environmental challenges and believe new states of nature will prevail - with or without us.
A true interdisciplinarian, I have explored Life at the Edges through scent and sculpture at Science Gallery Dublin, explored the ‘geologic body’ in the desert of Southern Spain, created meditative visuals for a machine as part of the Athens Digital Art Festival’s Singularity Now programme and explored notions of ‘digital creatures’ at Metaphonica IV among many other investigations. I also run ‘Elastic Nature’ - an art research club exploring the changing shapes of future nature.
For Radical Ecologies I will be discussing Field Notes from a Technobiocology, an installation and invitation for discussion situated in an imaginary, post-human future where biology and technology have converged to create new life forms, and new self-sustaining ecosystems. What kinds of being may emerge from the debris of DNA editing experiments? At the meeting point of nourishing earth and electrical waste? When digital code meets biologic hardware? Each speculative body is imbued with fictitious narratives that conceptually, materially and sensorially, express ideas about what the future and origins of life may be in such a hybrid world.
Tilly Hogrebe, Bowarts
Speaker
https://bowarts.org/
As part of an ongoing collaboration between Bow Arts and Artsadmin under the Julie’s Bicycle and Arts Council England Accelerator programme, the green leads of both organisations, Tilly Hogrebe (Bow Arts) and Alex Brown (Artsadmin) are looking at environmental sustainability within artist studios and in connection to artist practices. What materials are being used, and are environmental or other ethical aspects taken into account when these are bought? Are there ways to reduce and re-use materials, rather than recycle and dispose of? And do socio-economic factors such as time and money have an impact on how green an artist is in their practice? This project aims to find answers to those questions and is looking to establish ways in which we as arts organisations can inspire as well as assist artists to take sustainability in their practices to a new level.
Tilly Hogrebe is Creative Workspaces Manager for Bow Arts, where she oversees a wide portfolio of over 500 studio artists across 13 sites in east and south-east London. Her responsibilities include health & safety, sustainability, and she heads up the Green Team. Tilly dreams of making the world a better place and believes that everyone can do something, however small, to help make this happen. She is involved in environmental activism in her hometown of Southend-on-Sea, volunteers at her local community allotment and is a trustee for Southend Soup, a small charity that raises funds and awareness for local community led action projects.