Residencies Wrap-Up!

NaturArchy Residencies 

The JRC SciArt project is excited to announce that we successfully completed our 6 month period of exciting, stimulating and engaging art-science residencies, hosting a total of 27 residencies with quite a few taking place at the same time. 15 artists were in residency working on 14 different projects across 3 JRC sites, with around 30 main scientific/policy collaborators and numerous colleagues across the EC and JRC involved at least in preliminary discussions. 

Artists Yiannis Kranidiotis, Nonhuman Nonsense, Jemma Woolmore, Ingrid Mayrhofer-Hufnagl, Kristin Bergaust and Penelope Cain all returned to Ispra in between April and June to work with their science and policy counterparts and deepen the research of their projects, each diverse and unique. Topics such as: tipping points (The Tipping Point); cultural perspectives towards contaminants in the water (Haunted Waters); developing rituals to deal with the forever pollution of endocrine disruptors (These Relations Are Forever); deep time and mapping of bodies of water (Specter[al]s of Nature - Seeing beyond the visible); species extinction, biodiversity and narratives in the Oslofjord (Ocean Connections ); and the environmental, ecological and socio-cultural impact of lithium mining in the Atacama desert (The entanglement of desert water). 

Ingrid Mayrhofer-Hufnagl presented the developments of her project with her collaborators Alan Belward and Elahe Rajabiani, with an eye to the work-in-progress she would show at the Resilienze Festival Summer School in Bologna (09/06). Yiannis also presented on his collaboration, together with researcher Frank Dentener – watch the recording  – giving an exciting insight on the already advanced developments of the project. Nonhuman Nonsense instead invite you to share your stories, histories and material evidence from all over the world about bodies of water that are “haunted” by chemical contamination, by filling out the survey at: https://nonhuman-nonsense.com/hauntedwaters - published also in the WWQA Newsletter.

Claus Schöning and Julian Keimer experimented with artistic interventions and scouted venues for the presence of non-humans in the Commission in Brussels for their project Politics in Disguise, and the Compos[t]ing team, Ingrid Ogensted, Ingrid Mayrhofer-Hufnagl and Jonah Lynch, was also in Brussels – meeting with Jaime Gomez-Ramirez as well as Cinquantennaire museum and Brussels Environment to discuss their site-specific sculpture made from collected local, natural/organic materials.

The whole Lament team came together for the first time in June - artist Margherita Pevere, Céline Charveriat (environmentalist), Lucía Iglesias Blanco (DG ENV), Ivan Penov (artist and musician) and Diana Viera (JRC wildfires). Margherita gave both a presentation and artistic lecture to better engage colleagues with the devastation and rebirth brought by wildfires, ecological and non-human grief. Watch the presentation recording.

Finally we welcomed, each for two back to back weeks of residency, Gala Berger for Invisible Seeds, and Athena LaTocha for The effect of climate change on natural disasters. Athena was able to connect to colleagues from the soil, disaster-risk management, citizen engagement and remote sensing groups whilst Gala furthered her connection with researcher Irene Guerrero-Fernandez and gave a well attended presentation/workshop where she showcased both materials and videos by the Shipibo-Konibo community - watch the presentation recording.

Special thanks should go to the Curatorial Committee for their ongoing participation, especially external curators Ingeborg Reichle and Claudia Schnugg. 

Beyond JRC

And we're always happy to see NaturArchy go beyond JRC SciArt! Margherita Pevere participated to the JRC workshop: Crowdsourcing knowledge on depression mechanisms (20/04); Kristin Bergaust exhibited a “Work in Progress” version of Ocean Connections at the European Maritime Days in Brest (24/05-25/05), thanks to the support of the European Commission's department on Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. Penelope Cain presented at the EU Green Week 2023 (07/06) and is showcasing an early version of her NaturArchy project at the SACO Biennale in Antofagasta (21/06); Jemma Woolmore and Nonhuman Nonsense presented and showcased work at re:publica festival in Berlin (05/06-07/06); Ingrid Mayrhofer-Hufnagl presented her NaturArchy project at the Resilienze Festival Summer School in Bologna (09/06). 

JRC SciArt participated to ISEA International Symposium (18/05), presenting on the deep intersections between artistic inquiry, scientific research and policymaking that operate within the project with the aim to shape social relations, cultural frameworks and policy structures and using as examples the artists currently in residence in the framework of NaturArchy: Towards a Natural Contract. 

We also participated to the launch conference of BACH (Biobehavioral Arts & Culture for Health, sustainability and social cohesion) - a new, one-of-a-kind inter-departmental center on the (neuro-) biological, psychological and behavioral effects of culture at the University of Chieti-Pescara – presenting during the roundhouse on CULTURE AND SOCIETAL CHANGE: THE EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE (12/06).

& finally, the European Forum for Studies of Policies for Research & Innovation (Eu-SPRI) Annual Conference took place at the University of Sussex in Brighton (14/06-16/06), with participation of papers also on the track of “The emotions and art of the societal impact of research”, co-developed by JRC SciArt. 

Visiting Scientist 

JRC SciArt has also had the pleasure to host Dr Sofia Greaves as our Visiting Scientist from March to June 2023.

Sofia is a researcher at the Postgrowth Innovation Lab at the University of Vigo in Spain and she came to JRC SciArt to research further the potential of art-science collaborations to generate new narratives for innovation which go beyond capitalist values and the the logics of economic growth. 

Sofia presented her work to colleagues and JRC SciArt’s network whilst at JRC - watch the recording. We miss Sofia already and are excited to see the outcome of her research ! 

Catch up on past recordings and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter so that you don’t miss out on upcoming activities!

Images: Snapshots and highlights from the residencies so far.