GLACIER HOLOBIONT
ALBA SCHLOESSINGK
7th March - 29th March
EXHIBITION
EXHIBITION
The stories we choose to tell, speak volumes. Alba Schloessingk has chosen to create a fictitious world of curiosity and compassion, and then invites the audience into a shared imaginative realm.
The research presented in this exhibition; carried out diligently and sensitively by a fictional group of future alternative Arctic science-workers between the years 2033 - 2039; occupies this gallery space with a simple confidence, reflective of the character's steadfast belief in their fictional findings.
Schloessingk's in depth and far spanning fiction denotes a scientific method that is loving, where the fictional researchers maintain respect and curiosity toward their 'co-beings' in the area. Calling upon the audiences' ability to enter into Schloessingk's imagination with the same framework, the audience begin to place empathy at the forefront of their sense-making, and a cycle of acceptance and understanding of fellow beings is born.
Through the medium of sound work, video, and written work, the audience is able to immerse themselves into the world-building of the artist and engage with their imaginative and playful modes of communication. The extensive and thorough telling of this imagined future places Schloessingk within the storytelling context of Ursula K. Le Guin, and the intellectually immersive nature of what is presented places this show somewhere between installation, performance and daydream.
The audience is requested to adopt the artist's scientific attitude, approaching with open curiosity and investigating with a gentle and accepting hand.
-Writing by Ava Cowperthwaite
WORKSHOPS
WORKSHOPS
This workshop was run as a public facing event for Alba’s solo show on Stage Gallery ‘glacier holobiont’ It was a workshop for people with zero0000 ableton experience! It was for sonically inclined people who want to learn some ableton basics but don’t know where to start. The workshop taught people how to get to grips with Ableton - a programme Alba uses frequently in their practice + during the construction of the sound art for their exhibition
SCREENING
SCREENING
A screening of ‘Qapirangajuq: Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change’ (2010) dir. Zacharias Kunuk (Isuma) & lan Mauro ‘Attutauniujuk Nunami/Lament for the Land’ (2014) by the communities of Nunatsiavut and Ashlee Cunsolo Willox
The screening was run by Alba as part of their public facing programme for their solo show ‘glacier holobiont’
The films touched on environmental racism, Inuit history, the omission of Indigenous people from mainstream depictions of the Arctic, environments as a wider part of the whole self, the dangers of seeking scientific ‘objectivity’, anti-fossil fuel activism, anticapitalism, ecological memory and ecological grief.
100% of ticket sales will go to Isuma ~ an Inuit artists collective + platform for Indigenous film, video art and community TV, to support the Isuma community with the extreme cost of living in the Arctic.
OPENING NIGHT
OPENING NIGHT
About the Artist
alba schloessingk is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in south-east london.
their practice often begins with an imagined, situated point of view — a sporulating fungus, bell hooks’s inner monologue, future arctic scientists, a rock’s experience of time passing. from here they utilise scientific or historic research to expand on the imagined worlds this particular being/ object/person inhabits; muddying the factual and the fictional. the constellation of works emanating from this situated world then take the form of sound pieces/music, texts, videos and digital images.
alba is a writer, visual artist, citizen scientist, researcher and musician. their work has been published in fieldnotes journal and the sideline, and alba has exhibited and read in various art venues across London. they has also been commissioned to produce original music scores for other artists’ work, curate shows for independent radio, and DJ their research on choral protest music histories.