🌞🌿 April showers bring May flowers
This month, we start to think about how permaculture principles can be applied to art practices and we announce a new series of artist studio tours.
Permaculture is a design system that David Holmgren and Bill Mollison worked on in the 1970s for both sustainable use of land and a sustainable way of living. This concept was born from the questioning of industrial activities and the techno-explosion vision of the future. It has since developed as a model for building human design in accordance with the laws of nature.
It is also described as a thinking tool for designing sustainable systems and as a framework for people to be more self-reliant. Incorporating information and ideas from other ecological related views, permaculture has spread around the world as a movement, some would say as a philosophy, and not just as a concept.
The first of the twelve principles of permaculture is #1 to observe and interact. This means (A) to take the time to look at where we are, what are the forces present on the site, what is the climate, the typography, the soil, and then (B) to interact, adapt and take advantage of the site’s specific characteristics, including local resources.
Thus, permaculture strategies and techniques are different everywhere and there is no universal permaculture solution. What this philosophy teaches us, though, is the importance of design thinking and problem solving rather than just copying.
This permacultural approach to thinking deeply informs our ongoing research at villa villa, including our current investigation Towards permacultural art practices that look at how permaculture principles can be applied to art practices.
This permaculture framework is also the lens for analysing the result of our survey How sustainable is your studio practice in which 130 people participated last month — and we would like to take this opportunity to warmly thank everyone who responded to it. We are currently in the process of analysing the data and compiling findings into a survey summary report that we will present in an upcoming online discussion before sharing it on our website.
Studio visit series
We are very excited to announce a new series of artist studio tours, starting with a visit to Tânia Geiroto Marcelino.
Tânia (b. 1989) is a Portuguese visual artist, currently based in Lisbon. Working with the language of post-minimal interventive possibilities, Tânia’s practice explores the relationship she has with objects that surround her. This exploration takes the form of sculptures, paintings and drawings.
Tânia’s approach to a sustainable studio practice has been to focus on the production of small-scale works using found objects or found parts of materials and avoiding toxic materials and processes.
→ You can find our visit to Tânia’s studio on our Art Curator Grid page here.
We recommend
🌙 Wowo! Our very first interview is now live on Umbigo Magazine. Our founder, Alice Bonnot, was interviewed by Josseline Black to talk about the importance of sustainable practices and to present her ambitions and vision for creating a new socially and environmentally sustainable art residency model.
🌙 Our friends at Art / Switch are hosting a third virtual conference as part of the series (re)Framing the Arts: A Sustainable Shift. The next edition (re)Thinking Art Logistics is on Thursday and will include transportation, packaging and climate control, with a uniquely future oriented lens envisioning scenarios and potential practices of the near and far future. We hope you can join!
🌙 Our other friends at Ki Culture are also working on exciting stuff. They are now accepting applications for joining the Ki Futures Pilot Programme, a new global programme designed to support museums, institutions, galleries and other cultural organisations become more sustainable in compliance with Agenda 2030, the UN SDGs and the Paris Agreement. The programme offers training, resources, networking and support that are vital to addressing environmental and social issues.Â
Until next time
You will probably hear from us again in two weeks, as we are currently preparing B I G things.
Thanks for reading us and Happy Monday!