VISIONARY INSTITUTE
The Maltings., Berwick upon Tweed, UK, July-September 2021
The Multispecies Visionary Institute (MVI), invited visitors to experience an immersive body of artworks that is informed by sustainable land practices and spans a diverse range of media and disciplines. The exhibition is an Apparatus for Resurgence in Trophallaxis (ART), a storytelling and healing device that uses herbs, hives and other magical, healing substances and actions to engage all senses with images, smells, sounds, evoking ‘the dream that is mysteriously enclosed in nature’.
ART explores environmental sensitivity and speculates about forms of sustainable cohabitation and liveable futures; it presents works associated with the Multispecies Visionary Institute, a creative organisation that harnesses creativity to implement alternatives in ways of thinking and making at the service of ART and multispecies flourishing. The exhibition includes an innovative system for a portable exhibition space called (S)Low Disturbance Exhibition Model, and the programme of events gives training for Becoming an Indigenous Organisms Mystics (BIO Mystics)(BIOM).
The exhibition was accompanied by a series of evolving exhibitions, events and workshops, giving visitors practical hands on experience of skills to support sustainable living. See below for more information.
Apparatus for Resurgence in Trophallaxis (ART) was commissioned by Berwick Visual Arts and has been supported using public funding by Arts Council England, Newcastle University’s Institute for Creative Arts Practice and the Polish Cultural Institute
MULTISPECIES VISIONARY INSTITUTUT Publication with text and diagrams LINK
This iteration of ART and MVI features works and contributions from Naomi Bailey-Cooper, Hannah Christy , Aleksandra Borys, BeeTime Collective, Naomi Bailey-Cooper, Jayne Dent, Dr. Barnaby Drabble , Saskia Callaars - De Gruyter, Karmit EvenZur‘ Bridget Kennedy, Olena Wikiel Dudala of Kwasne Drzewo Saurebaum, Ruth Starr Keddle, Lukasz Luczaj, Catherine Sarah Young, Eva Masterman, Magdalena Starska, Iris Priest, Wilf Richard, Rosie McLachlan, Lois Robins, Onyx, Joseph Sallis, Sabina, Sallis,, Mark Shipperlee , Lisa Schonberg Chloe Smith, Sophie Lisa Beresford Smith, SeedSistas, Brigitte Mars&BethyLoveLight, Piotr Pilasiewicz of Treebeekeeping Brotherhood, Finn Hughes-Smith, Alicja Swiatlon, Eline Tabak, Madeleine Wynne among multiple other species.