NaturArchy Residencies: These Relations Are Forever @ JRC

Weaving a speculative story of ritual and healing, where scientific and policy outcomes are intertwined with artistic processes through the thematic thread of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs). 

Artist Jemma Woolmore (Instagram: @jemthemisfit) will be in residence at the JRC in Ispra from the 27/02 to the 03/03, working with JRC colleagues Caterina Cacciatori, Sandra Coecke and Irene Guerrero Fernandez and joined remotely by Saskia Vermeylen (legal anthropologist, Strathclyde University). 

Together they will develop These Relations Are Forever. This project brings together the knowledge of four researchers, whose work sits at different stations along a flow of chemicals; from agriculture via law and policy through bodies and into water. 

Jemma will present her work and ongoing collaboration at the JRC. This presentation will be hybrid in format and Webex attendance will be possible, details to be confirmed. To receive the details please email: JRC-RESONANCES@ec.europa.eu.

More about the project 

The four researchers are presented as Wise Women, holders of knowledge and protectors of life; their scientific practices are reframed as relations of care and ritual becomes a vehicle to make connections across bodies, scales, cycles and scientific disciplines. This work will address fertility, community and (more-than-human) health, telling stories that explore the power of positive  imaginaries, offering a way of ‘staying with our troubles’ whilst envisioning alternative ways of being in the world. Through ritual and storytelling we bring into being new possibilities.

Background

Jemma Woolmore is a media artist, originally from New Zealand and based in Berlin. Caterina Cacciatori is an environmental engineer working on water management. Sandra Coecke is a toxicologist working on Food Safety and One Health. Irene Guerrero Fernandez is a geoinformatician and agricuiltural ecologist and Saskia Vermeylen is legal anthropologist working at Strathclyde University. The researchers first met Jemma at the SciArt Summer School on NaturArchy which took place in June 2022 at the JRC, and Jemma then connected the group.