“What if climate change is not a case to be made, but a sound to be heard?” poses English storyteller Martin Shaw. Sitting with this notion provokes another question: Are we making enough time to listen? To notice the effects of our collective and daily efforts? To respond with the intention to the exchange we are creating with our surroundings; the sum of holding all of these notions together is what creates the conversation we have every day with our environments, our collective home. The way we impact our landscapes has a direct effect on how we might imagine them. Over time, the implications of all these fragmented parts begin to influence how we might teach ourselves to see them. The concept behind the making of our ecosystem embodiment, ‘Narrative sPace’ is central to activating a sharpening of this awareness. How can we compose an immersive experience in which we gain insight of ourselves experiencing our environments?
When addressing the gravity found in the macrocosm of climate change, there is seldom a felt sense of long-lasting agency in offering finite and fixed solutions. Perhaps meeting our nuanced planet with a consistent and subtle attitude of questioning is how we can make room for more reciprocity. When it comes to the pace at which humanity is evolving, we must consider the ever-changing complexity we enlist in its resources. Four cross-medium students from the Royal College of Art found that value is located in examining the roots of how we move through the world, and how we see ourselves as agents of change within the ever-evolving intersection of our desires and their physical manifestations.
We often forget the role of the physical body when attempting to learn something new. Through its niche and adapted sensory systems, we have a very profound and unique ability to make contact with the offerings of the physical world. Texture, sound, and visual stimulation all distinguish the experience of Narrative sPace. Marked by the materials of the earth itself, participants will inhabit and navigate an expanse of clay, sand, sunflowers, and fabric phenomena. As the viewer enters the building and descends into the varied margins of sustainability conferences, a process of witnessing, destruction, and decomposition occurs.
The role of humans as agents of change is meant to be seen through a neutral lens. Through this installation, we seek to engage the individual's experience of itself within its environment. It is up to the individual to translate this information through their own criticality and arrive at a place where further action can be deciphered and negotiated. It is our hope to foster a reclaiming of agency over our awareness of this relationship between the human and their environment. To ask ourselves: does the pace at which we construct and maintain our lives include the time when we are simply able to notice this relationship at work? In building a space intended for fluid interpretation, we aim to spark and fuel curiosity among its participants about their own role as agents of change. As viewers collectively experience this reconciliation with their own presence within the spaces that give a backdrop to their lives, communal awareness is sparked. It is our hope that this installation engenders a shared response of solidarity and an applied examination of our place within our environments.
This project was a collaboration with Danish artists Jakob Vinkler and Inge Agnete. The installation was built in Ikast, Denmark in March 2024.
