A new intergenerational learning project led by a team of local artists and natural scientists will aim to unlock ecological knowledge with people of all ages across East Yorkshire.
Through free critical and creative memory workshops, hands-on outdoor gatherings, skills development opportunities, library reading rooms and unique experiences, Virtual Ecologies is a communal coming together of different approaches to exploring our surroundings.
The Arts Council England funded project will investigate the effects of Shifting Baseline Syndrome – the way in which, over time we come to unknowingly accept ecological degradations as the healthy default for a functioning environment, on our individual perceptions, and the vital role our often unspoken individual memories play in shaping our feelings on the changing landscapes around us. Using Shifting Baseline Syndrome, with the guidance of rewilding ecologists Anna Gilchrist and Joe Glentworth, we will investigate the intersections between farming and rural livelihoods, biodiversity and conservation, and the coastal pressures affecting both of these.
Another strand of the project – a creative partnership with the Alzheimer’s Society, and the Lise Meitner Group for Environmental Neuroscience in Berlin, will open up questions more widely around what memory loss might mean in relation to the preservation of ecological knowledge, as climate change increasingly impacts our cognitive health.
The project, which aims to reduce social isolation particularly in coastal and rurally isolated communities, will culminate in an innovative online archive built using CGI software with artist and Creative Technologist, Artistotle Roufanis, going live in May 2025. The archive will contain outcomes from workshops, events and exchanges. There will also be physical installations and representations of the work people have made over the six-month journey at various sites across the region. The ambition is to create a rich and powerful record of natural change for and from within the community as possible. This will serve as an educational resource for learning centres, and the coming generations that will inherit our often uncollected but crucial, local ecological knowledge.
Project Leader, Matt Fratson, said: “For me, Virtual Ecologies is really a big love letter to the area where I grew up and have so many memories of the shape-shifting landscapes, particularly of Holderness where I would explore farmland with my Grandad and later on make a connection between the crumbling cliff tops and the widening gaps between those memories. It’s a privilege now to be going back to those roots and the communities that live and work across these amazing communities, and learn more from them, together with a team of incredible artists, and natural scientists that we are working with for the first time.”
Over the coming months, events and opportunities will continually be added to the Virtual Ecologies website – check out the Get Involved page to find out more and book free places.
The Virtual Ecologies project team are: artist-educators Matt Fratson, Thomas Robinson, Ruby Deverell, Fiona Caley, Alexander Stubbs and Joe Foster, together with natural science researchers Dr. Anna Gilchrist (The University of Manchester), Dr. Joe Glentworth (Sheffield Hallam University), and Dr. Simone Kuhn (Max Planck Institute for Human Development).
Virtual Ecologies is made possible with the support of Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grants.
www.virtualecologies.com
instagram: virtualecologies email: info@virtualecologies.com