End 2023, we were introduced to John Kenneth Paranada (Ken), UK-based Curator, Researcher and Writer. He is the first Curator of Art and Climate Change at the Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia. His interdisciplinary practice focuses on experimental futures, hybrid forms and practices, with a focus on climate change, sustainability, historical entanglements, the Anthropocene, social sculpture, new media technologies and platforming climate narratives. We just finished performing GeoSeances and wanted to talk and think about contexts in which the works could be exhibited. Ken proved to be the most generous and forward-thinking person we could wish for to discuss our ideas with. At some point he introduced to be working on the exhibition "Ecological Frontiers: Our Bridge Over Troubled Water" and that he liked our artistic explorations. Especially how our work acts as a catalyst for introspection and discussion, challenging to reconsider perceptions of reality and the natural world. We shared so many ways of thinking about things and agreed to merge our understandings and search for a way to materialize these for the upcoming "Ecological Frontiers” exhibition.
Ken told us about the “Strangers” ore “Aliens” migrants who in the eleventh century left for England to escape large-scale flooding in the Low Countries (today the south of the Netherlands and Flanders in Belgium). In the late Middle Ages, many of the ‘wool churches’ in the East of England, so called because they were financed by profits from the wool trade, were constructed with the help of skilled artisans from the Low Countries. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, thousands of Calvinists fled to England, particularly after the Beeldenstorm (Iconoclastic Fury) of 1566. While many settled in London, others moved to Norwich, the county town of Norfolk, which had a strong claim to be called England’s second city after London during the early modern period and where the Sainsbury Centre is located. This history was totally new to us even though we live where the “Strangers” and ‘Aliens” originated. The fact that these migrants fled for large-scale flooding made us look at them as early climate refugees.
According to recent statistics, over 376 million people around the world have been forcibly displaced by floods, windstorms, earthquakes or droughts since 2008, with a record 32.6 million in 2022 alone. Since 2020, there has been an annual increase in the total number of displaced people due to disaster compared with the previous decade of 41 % on average. The upward trend is alarmingly clear. With climate change as the driving catalyst, the number of 'climate refugees' will continue to rise. The Institute for Economics and Peace predicts that in the worst-case scenario, 1.2 billion people could be displaced by 2050 due to natural disasters and other ecological threats. Despite steps in the right direction, national and international responses to this challenge remain limited, and protection for those affected inadequate. There is no clear definition of a 'climate refugee', nor are climate refugees covered by the 1951 Refugee Convention. This means that climate cannot currently be cited as a reason for seeking asylum or refugee status in the West. An acceptance of climate refugees (environmental refugees) is one of the issues in diplomatic policy associated with sea level rise brought about by climate change. Since 2023, New Zealand has in place a framework for accepting migrants from Pacific Island states as well as for building capacity locally in the affected areas.
After we discussed these past and future scenarios with Ken, he then shared pieces from the Sainsbury Collection and asked us to think about a way to respond to them having the above context in mind. After we studied the objects “The Fishermen’s God” stuck with us. A wooden human-like figure dating back to between the period of 1775 and 1825 from Cook Islands, Oceania, Pacific, Rarotonga. This type of idol was placed upon the fore part of every fishing canoe; and when the natives were going on a fishing excursion, prior to setting off, they invariably presented offerings to the god and invoked it to grant them success. Rituals, such as formal invocations for fishing success, the god was invited by the priest to occupy its material image. It is also a powerful example of the way in which Polynesian sculptors were not constrained in their work by considerations of naturalism. Representative portraiture was not the intention, but rather the evocation and realization in material form of qualities — in this case fecundity, potency, solidity and permanence. The condition of the image is good, although the feet are damaged and the large pendent phallus, present on three other examples, has unfortunately been sawn off. This is probably a result of having originally been collected by London Missionary Society missionaries, who retained as souvenirs those ‘idols’ which were not destroyed in the early fervor of conversion.
The ethnographic object is mostly used to display a narrative about typical actors which neither speaks nor thinks, they only behave. The object is used as evidence of ideas that never change. Around that same time in history, European ships also had idols which identified both as person as object, mascot as talisman, lookout as indicator, edge as limit. The European version would be Klabautermann, an all-yellow good-natured goblin known for his penchant for mischief. This made us want to create “The Fishermen’s God” in all-yellow. A way for us to break the barrier between original and copy and express the appropriation of a migrant culture narrative by Western history. A high-tech sculpture in translocal material to evoke qualities of piracy and transience.
We then pitched our concept to Mark Scheffer, professor leading Innovation Lab at the Technical University Eindhoven. The lab is the center of expertise for Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) and student entrepreneurship, a learning hub for education innovation and an open community where students, researchers, industry, and societal organizations can exchange knowledge to develop responsible solutions to real world-challenges. Mark was taken by the idea of reproducing the ethnographic object in a translocal material and experience the change in meaning this possibly could render. He advised to use PLA, a thermoplastic monomer derived from renewable organic sources such as cornstarch or sugarcane-biomass. A natural polymer substitute for petroleum-based plastics. Printing would take at least a week. It is a process where slices of organic biomass are layered on top of each other. Real slimy… Like Ectoplasm (also known as Ghost Slime) a substance that comes from ghosts and out worldly beings.
Unfortunately, after the first seven days an error occurred, and the print job suddenly stopped. The technicians told us it never happened before and are not sure what happened, but that they’ll restart the process asap. We ask them to be careful because it remains a God after all!
It seems as if the machine errored precisely where the Fishermen’s God once had a phallus?