Sarah Casey
Rocky Climates
2021- Ongoing
Rocky Climates is a research network of artists brought together around shared interest in the precarities found in human encounters with geology.
It is being developed in collaboration with Rebecca Birch and Jen Southern.
The network was initiated in summer of 2021 in a series of Zoom meetings; ‘Conversations with rocks’, hosted by participating artists and researchers from rocky environments. The meetings tested a form of remote fieldwork, where we used Zoom as a portal to connect sensorially and materially to the different locations, creating space for experimenting together, thinking and making with the environments and with each other.
Initial participating were: Ellie Barratt, Gudrun Filipska, Anthony Hall, Fritha Jenkins, Simone Kenyon, Paula Kolar, Signe Liden, Matterlurgy (Helena Hunter and Mark Peter Wright), Sarah Simblet, Dominic Smith, Rob Smith, Emma Stibbon, Nina Wakeford and Joanna Taylor. The network is growing ( see below).
More about the project on the Rocky Climates Website >>
Events
Rocky Futures 26-29th October 2023 , exhibition at T2M conference at Konkuk Academy of Mobility Humanities, Seoul
The exhibition is being presented in collaboration with Future Everything and each artist conversation' will be screened online.
Exhibiting artists are: Brass Art, Kaya Tatjana Berry, Clare McCracken, Sarah Fuller, Fritha Jenkins, Perdita Phillips, Fay Stevens, Holly Veselka, and the collective of Rona Lee, Jean Boyd Louise K. Wilson.
Rock Up! : In September 2022 we led Rock Up! and event for Art Houses festival. Rocky Climates staged participatory conversations with rocks at St Marys lighthouse Whitley Bay. Taking place during low tide, these rocky meetings explored ideas and stories that emerge from the rocky foreshore that separates the tidal island of St Mary’s from the mainland.
The day created encounters with the less-noticed aspects of this rocky environment, through story-telling, touch, lens, sound and speculation. Some conversations took place out on the rocks, some in the meeting room at the lighthouse. Each conversation was streamed into the lighthouse via Zoom and out to remote participants, bringing together a dispersed rocky community.
Rocky Climates artists contributing to this event include Ellie Barrett, Rebecca Birch, Sarah Casey, Simone Kenyon, Paula Kolar, Dominic Smith, Jen Southern and during the day we were accompanied by geologist Livi Adu.
Future rockiness...
We are currently working towards funding further network activity, and welcome new participants. The network and new funding applications are structured to enable salaried researchers to work alongside precariously employed or self-employed artists on equal and fair terms.
Initial activity has been supported by LICA (Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts) at Lancaster University, Arthouses and Future Everything