Culture collection of Algae and Protozoa, Scottish Association of Marine Science
I read poems from my projects ‘Falling Birds’ (Horniman Museum) and ‘Algae Ecologies’ (Scottish Association of Marine Science) alongside poet Isabel Galleymore and Jon Woodward (Harvard Museum of Natural History) as part of Unnatural Histories, a series of events and conversations organised by Dr. Verity Burke, John Pollard Newman Fellow of Climate Change and the Arts at University College Dublin.
My poems ‘Telephone Exchange’ and ‘Tape Relay’ have been published in Bunker: Stories and Poems from a Nuclear Age, edited by Sarah Jackson and Daniel Cordel, published by Five Leaves Press. Contributing authours include: Zayneb Allak, Hannah Cooper-Smithson, Anthony Cropper, Ailbhe Darcy, Jay Gao, Delphine Grass, Jonathan Hogg, Helena Hunter, Martine Hamilton Knight (photography), Phil Leonard, Jon McGregor, Andrew Taylor, Maria Gil Ulldemolins.
I was interviewed about my artist residency at the Scottish Association of Marine Science (SAMS) by Euan Paterson, the SAMS Ocean Explorer Podcast host. In this podcast episode ‘Poetic Sampling: Where Art and Science Collide’ I discuss some of the projects I developed at SAMS with marine ecologist Alasdair O'Dell, including the development of poems and artworks through snorkelling fieldwork in the kelp forests of the West Highlands. The Ocean Explorer podcast is produced by the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), an ocean research institute and partner of UHI based in Oban.
I’ll be a Researcher in Residence at The Scottish Association of Marine Science (SAMS) in 2024. I’ll be working with Marine Biologists near Oban on the Scottish west coast, contributing to the Toxic Phytoplankton Monitoring program, the Experimental Seaweed Farms, and working with the world's most diverse Culture Collection of Algae and Protozoa.
Critical-creative paper 'Fathoming the microbial sea: scaling with algae across poetry and science' presented at Arizona State University in October as part of the SLSA Alien conference, keynote Karen Barad. The paper was part of ‘Visions of Scale’ panel with scale theorists Joshua Dicaglio and Zachary Horton.
Critical-poetic readings, film and sound works from Postnatural Supernatural and Falling Birds will be presented at Café Oto along with new works as part of ‘Music and Other Living Creatures X Encounters: On Capture’ with Hermione Spriggs and Mark Peter Wright on Tuesday, 25 July 2023, 8 pm. Book tickets here.
Postnatural Supernatural has been published in The Contemporary Journal at Nottingham Contemporary, in the Emergency and Emergence strand, edited by Canan Batur. Postnatural Supernatural comprises three short films that consider tree spirit beliefs within rural communities of the Philippines and how these intersect with colonisation, deforestation and bird decline. The films form part of Sourcebook – a collaborative research project and exhibition LUX Moving Image and Het Nieuwe Instituut's Research Center with artist Mandy El- Sayegh and curator Renan Laru-an that explores curatorial and artistic practices in UK and Philippine contexts.
Field Casting an exhibition by Matterlurgy runs at Titanik Gallery in Turku (Finland) from 3 Feb - 2 Mar 2023. The exhibition investigates scientific ‘fieldwork’ as a site and subject of study, zooming in on the practices, tools and perspectives embroiled in the production of climate data. It explores the relationship between field practice and automated data collection and highlights knowledge as an event that is materially entangled with the lives of humans and nonhumans. The exhibition was curated by Taru Elfving and commissioned by CAA Contemporary Art Archipelago in collaboration with the Archipelago Research Institute (University of Turku).
NOAA-18, London, 18 February 2022, 10:52 UTC. open-weather CC BY 4.0.
Listening with Eunice, a text and audio work made in collaboration with Mark Peter Wright has been published in MAP Magazine. The piece was commissioned by Daniela Cascella as part of her year-long editorial series ‘A Year of Carte Blanche and Other Chimeras’, which includes contributions by Richard Skelton, Ella Finer and James Wilkes, Alice Butler, Christof Migone, Autumn Richardson and many more. The image of Storm Eunice featured in the work was created by Sasha Engelmann and Sophie Dyer as part of open-weather, a project experimenting with images and imaginaries of earth using DIY community tools.
Air Morphologies a new panoramic film made in collaboration with artsXR will be on show at The Wellcome Collection as part of the group exhibition In the Air, until Oct 2022. The exhibition includes work by Tacita Dean, David Rickard, Dryden Goodwin, Forensic Architecture, Choked Up, Anna Atkins, Black and Brown Films, Irene Kopelman, Ernst Haeckel and John Evelyn.
Onassis Stegi presents Weather Engines a group show curated by Jussi Parikka and Daphne Dragona 1 April - 15 May 2022. The exhibition features Matterlurgy’s film Hydromancy and a newly commissioned work Data Dialogues made in collaboration with scientists at the National Oceanography Centre UK.
Sourcebook is a collaborative research project and exhibition at LUX with artist Mandy El-Sayegh and curator Renan Laru-an that explores curatorial and artistic practices in UK and Philippine contexts. In moving image form the exhibition compiles aesthetic output in the layering of surfaces that can be experienced as cuts and transitions, aural notations in speech and poetry, or paratextual excess of found objects and frequencies. Thu 27 Jan - Sun 6 Mar 2022, Wednesday - Saturday, 12 pm-4 pm, LUX & LUX Online.
Filmed on location at the University of Southampton’s National Oceanography Centre, an institute for developing technologies that investigate the world’s oceans, earth systems and biosphere, John Hansard Gallery will present Hydromancy 1 Nov 2021 – 31 Jan 2022.
Rehearsals for Uncertain Futures, a short film by Matterlurgy will be featured in the group exhibition Connected Nature at Waterman’s, London, UK as part of Season for Change. The exhibition launch will be on 22 Oct at 6pm will run until 2 Jan 2022.
Matterlurgy release their first vinyl that forms part of their project FLOM SONG. The FLOM album release will take place on 18 Sept 12-4pm at Rogaland Kunstsenter, Stavanger, Norway.
River Studio a workshop on the River Thames in partnership with Whitechapel Gallery and Arts Catalyst, 14 Aug.
Situated along a strip of east London Thames beach at low tide, River Studio invites artists and researchers from all disciplines to consider water's material, political, and imaginary ecologies. This workshop explores how humans and nonhumans co–compose water and considers the cultural, spectral and chemical impacts that form, inform and are formed by the river. Our collaborative enquiries draw on science and art to reimagine how rivers are examined, understood and interpreted.
Sensitives Stream online launch event, Arts Catalyst, Thursday 27 May.
A conversation between artist duo Matterlurgy (Helena Hunter & Mark Peter Wright) and Professor Veronica Strang. Taking as a starting point ways of engaging with what lives in water and the role of such organisms in constituting a common planet the event will explore how human and non-human relations can be collectively re-imagined within river catchments.
Sensitives Stream is an online project by Matterlurgy (Helena Hunter and Mark Peter Wright) that shares research and practice from their residency with Arts Catalyst as part of Test Sites. The project highlights the importance of river-dwelling organisms and how their presence or absence indicates broader stories in relation to ecosystems, environmental stress and human activity.
You can now watch online a short film with poems and images from my exhibition Falling Birds at the Horniman Museum. The film has a soundtrack by sound artist Mark Peter Wright and is part of the Corbel Stone Press 10 Year Anniversary Event at The Aerial Festival.
Secretarybird (Xray) © Helena Hunter 2019
Falling Birds will be exhibited at The Horniman Museum and Gardens from 19 Sept 2020. The display features artworks that blend larger-than-life X-ray images of extinct and endangered bird specimens from the Horniman’s Natural History collection with fragments of poetic text. The artworks open up questions about natural history, authorship, ethics and gesture towards hidden narratives that are materially entangled in the lives of birds. The artworks were developed during an Artquest research residency at the Museum.