Presentation of Art & Science Residency Namur: Imagining Ecological Futures
Centre culturel de Namur
KIKK, in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Brussels and in partnership with the CCN/Centre culturel de Namur, has invited artists to participate in the Art & Science residency focused on "Imagining Ecological Futures" in Wallonia. The aim of the prgramme is to develop useful arts-led interdisciplinary research tools and artworks to examine how cultural practitioners critically address and creatively negotiate ecological futures.
We are delighted to welcome the German artist Sina Hensel and the Belgian artist duo Guillaume Slizewicz and Gijs de Heij to Namur.
On 30th May, the artists will present their residency progress to the public:
Where did you grow before heat planted the garden? – Sina Hensel
As Nicole Starosielski writes:''The most influential messages of the twenty-first century will be sent not through words and images but through heat and cold.''(Starosielski, Media Hot and Cold, 2022: Introduction) Heat reminds us of an impossible present. As an invisible force it is hard to grasp, yet it is in critical need to be made visible and tangible as thermal materiality. In the future, practices of temperature as well as questions of thermal privilege or thermal harm will shape our discourses. Hence, in the project “Where did you grow before heat planted the garden?” thermal experiences and encounters are in focus. How do they materialise in shifts of colour and how do they leave traces as witnesses of thermal relations? With the help of heating ceramic bodies, the artwork pays attention to heat as materiality (through colour).
Carbon Technostructures – Guillaume Slizewicz & Gijs de Heij
The project aims to render visible the infrastructures sustaining our technological practices, alongside their energy consumption and environmental repercussions. It seeks to draw attention to the energy infrastructures our technology relies upon and its ecological impacts. The initial phase, currently being developed through a web API called Carbon Aware, shows the energy types powering website servers and users’ locations, highlighting the tangible footprint of our digital actions. For this residency, the artists propose to extend their enquiry through a physical installation, exploring the energy dynamics within cultural spaces.
