Process, Practice, and Environmental Crisis

Diversity, Listening and Understanding session on Friday 19 February 2021

I had some issues to log onto the symposium and eventually listened to 3 artists talking about Human and More-than-human Relationships

Francesca Curtis – Cetaceans on Camera: Towards Ecological Speculation in Ant Farm’s Dolphin Embassy
Lydia Halcrow – Tread Lightly on the Earth Beneath
Marina Velez – Camelopard: Exploring value complexity in human-animal relationship and its impact on the environment

My highlight was listening to Lydia Halcrow’s 5 year project of series of processes which she made in an estuary which is being threatened by rising sea-levels, coastal erosion and human debri. Her conversations through making was also a coping mechanism to deal with her grandmothers failing health. She connects with other lives, not human and sensorial knowledge of place. I love the maps she made with matter of the place, the materials used to get to better understanding, and the use of her own senses in the process.

From her website on these works: “My walking body records the textures of the ground underfoot – metal, paper and earth hold a register of the palimpsest of marks that layer step by step. Collected earth forms pigments to paint, draw and print with while collected debris acts as another register to record how we care for our places in the everyday.“

I also looked at her ‘aerial maps, which according to her website she sources from multiple sources and use different scales in order that she could explore how we navigate our places and the traces we leave behind. These are layered, sanded into and assembled to form paintings, drawings and prints that I think of as experiential maps.

My thoughts around the coastal areas have been influenced by the construction of the man made island here where we life and how this have influenced the natural flow of the sea and marine life biodiversity. I once had an opportunity of a life time by seeing, for a moment, a sea turtle near the beach where I regularly walk. I am aware of the grasses they feed on and have collected some, dried them and incorporated them into my art work during late 2019. Recently I see broken grass again as the waves continuously brings deposits to the coastal line and I am also amazed by the amount of little shells I was seeing.

I looked into it and found that it is called Cerithiidae gastropods, which are algal mat grazing living things which are also found in the intertidal Sabka flats/pools.

I love these forms and shapes and it keeps me questioning how this phenomenon is or can be related to our human footprint and global warming issues.

Even my husband was intrigued by these shells and seemingly fragments of coral – I see opportunity to use the coral fragments as printing ‘blocks’ and obvious going into my collection of found objects

I came upon research studies which indicate a deep concern for these Sabkha areas and how looking into their sediment forming could lead scientist to study climate change.

Sabkha is the local Gulf Arabic word for a flat, salt-crusted desert. The Sabkha is a translation of the Arabic word (سبخه), geologically referring to any form of flat salt-encrusted desert that is usually lacks any significant plant cover due to the high concentration of salts and sediments where the level of groundwater is very low and may be zero in some locations. Sabkhas are geographically divided into two categories: Coastal Sabkha and Inland Sabkha. In a depositional environment like the sabkha, with strong evaporation due to the air temperature of the sabkha area can reach 60′ or more in summer, the pore waters become highly concentrated and are drawn towards the surface, causing the precipitation of evaporites – halite, gypsum and anhydrite, together with some authigenic minerals: aragonite, calcite, dolomite, celestite and magnetite.

The sabkhas are low-lying, sand and salt flats that stand only a few centimeters above high-tide mark. It seems from my research that they are the most obviously endangered geological feature in the UAE. (Evans and Kirkham)Seagrass detritus also contributes nutrients and energy to sabkha substrate, contributing to the development of storm-berms at seaward edges and supporting halophytic fauna and flora. Halophytic root systems then help stabilize the Sabkha substrate which minimizes the effect of
wind erosions and retains water in coastal soils.

Below is a quick sketchbook drawing of how I can use section photomicrographs of sites. I like the idea of using these as images to paint and represent place.

In the scientific papers I saw images called thin section photomicrographs of the seaward site of the hardground. This is my interpretation of site of the area I live next to the man made island

Glossary: A micrograph or photomicrograph is a photograph or digital image taken through a microscope or similar device to show a magnified image of an object. This is opposed to a macrograph or photomacrograph, an image which is also taken on a microscope but is only slightly magnified, usually less than 10 times. Wikipedia

For my own practice and work process I see repetition and layering in these phenomena. Here is a history of at least 7 000 years of how with continuous waves sediment layers were ‘built’ along the coastline. I could even identify some of the shells I have been collecting and it gives me some form of grounding of place to have had this new learning in my walking practice. It is not easy to find photographic images other than in scientific papers.