Arts Catalyst & ; a place, of their own.

For Art Assembly Arts Catalyst have invited artist duo ; a place, of their own. (Sam Vardy and Paula McCloskey) to consider approaches to climate change and the environment, against the backdrop of Walthamstow Wetlands.

At Winns Gallery on the 23 November a multi-media interactive exhibition will offer Art Assembly visitors the chance to explore the wetlands imaginary, featuring an audiovisual installation of Myths for a Wetlands Imaginary, interactive digital maps, and displays of research about global wetlands in popular culture, developed throughout the residency by ; a place, of their own. in collaboration with workshop participants. The exhibition features contributions from artist Gary Stewart (Dubmorphology) and writer Season Butler.

About the project

With thousands around the world, wetlands are one of the planet's most important places and ecosystems, but also one of the most endangered. In the struggle to find ways to understand and to respond to the climate crisis, this series of events for the Art Assembly led by artists ; a place, of their own., suggests that wetlands around the world offer a new imaginary for these times - a new way to think and to imagine other ways to live, and to relate to the earth.

Developed through a residency at Walthamstow Wetlands Centre, Myths for a Wetlands Imaginary is a performative inquiry into global wetlands loss and an exploration of resistant wetland imaginaries, led by art and spatial practice duo ; a place, of their own. and is part of Walthamstow Borough for Culture and the Art Fund’s one-day festival, Art Assembly 2019.
 
The project considers approaches to the ecological crisis that has led to the loss of up to 75% of the world’s wetlands, against the backdrop of Walthamstow Wetlands. Through a collective process of producing maps, stories and myths, the artists wish to develop a ‘global wetlands imaginary’ as an  ecological imaginative space for human and non-human co-existence, and as a metaphor for new forms of multispecies solidarity. 

The project builds on ;a place, of their own.’s work with Arts Catalyst exploring ideas of decolonisation, borders, geopower and extraction.