I have just finished editing my latest book Mother • River and sent it to Blurb. It's for my initial journeys to the Yangtze River in China. It's quite a complex book to put together and I've just ordered 3 copies as proofs. The link is below and please give me feedbacks! I'll consider how to make the book better with all the comments and hopefully a proper version will be available soon.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/1929335/bd3fdc78a1db4fef4b5d1c1deccec159f0854660.

Thanks!

During the journey along the Irwell, I have been reflecting on such practice and trying to seek out some ‘answers’. Then some artists work came as inspirations, the ‘picture’ suddenly became clearer.

The first one is Daniel Staincliffe who has just completed a residency at the Forest of Dean called Fauna Antomana: British Wild Boar, in order to raise public awareness of wild boar.

Then on Thursday Dr. David Haley from MA Art&Environmental at Manchester Metropolitan University came to visit with his colleagues James Brady and Kate Bevan. All of them work in the fields of arts, environment and ecology.

After a chat with them, I realised that my engagement with the environment, or, with the landscape, has always been a metaphysical, or an aesthetic one. I am preoccupied with the ‘representation’ of the landscape and its ‘aesthetic’ value. However the environmental and ecological artists not only see the appearance of an environment, but also work with its function, its physical characters and its physical links with everything else. They actively aim to make a real change. (And the word ‘environment’ and ‘landscape’ really mean two different things!)

This discovery is enlightening. There is value in both approaches, and an artist can work in one or both domains. But it’s better to know the difference.

I started digging into my ‘ideas bank’. And one river came to mind: the Irwell. I have a profound interest in rivers, they mean so many things; I’m drawn to them for their immortality and physical journeys. In 2009/10 I did the River Ribble project as a way to explore how we portray nature subjectively. Meanwhile, my ongoing project The Yangtze River explores the relationship between nature and culture in contemporary China. I had come close to the Irwell before that am aware that it’s different river. Having contributed much to the Industrial Revolution in Manchester area, the Irwell was one of the most polluted rivers in the country. While the Ribble has only slightly been industrialised and the Yangtze is being transformed, the Irwell is on the third stage: it has been completely tamed and apparently it has been given back a life in recently years.

It’ll be good to walk the Irwell as a way to observe how a true post-industrial river is like. The plan is to do it in the same way to the Ribble---I’ll divide the river into several equal sections and walk along it. I’ll do something at each exact dividing points. Last time I took photos at each dividing points on the Ribble, but I always had a question about how well we can ‘represent’ a river. So, this time I’m going to take a bottle of water from each dividing points. No photography as planned, and it’s local. Perhaps the water can form some artwork and can also feed the soybeans.

(Image: A Peacock butterfuly along the River Irwell.)

When I received the brief for ‘Life Friendly’ project, I was doing a residency in Chongqing, China. Outside of my window there was a world with exploding cities and dying rivers. I had travelled 14,000 kilometres to get there, I was homesick and I wasn’t sure whatever I was doing would be ‘good’ for anything or anybody. Some ‘life friendly miracles’ were urgently needed.

But now, as I try to understand what the concept really means (see researcher Nadine Andrew’s blog here. It was Nadine who initiated the ‘Life Friendly’ idea.), there are questions. I understand that we are to explore an art-making process and result that can ‘bring benefits to the individual, to other people, and to the natural world that we are an integral part of and upon which we depend for survival.’(1) Instead of simply reducing our resource-consuming quantity, the ‘ideal’ art-making activities should also have a ‘benign’ or ‘restorative’ impact on nature.

1.So how do we define ‘benefits’ that can be brought by art? Is it physical? If so, how can art make people healthier? Is it spiritual? What kind of spirituality? Some art works make people smile, some make people sad, some enlighten people, which effect can be called ‘beneficial’?

2.And how do we define ‘benefits to nature’? Does it mean that we can improve nature? But can nature be ‘improved’ if nature is already ‘perfect’? Does it mean that we can either have less impact on nature or that we can restore or recreate ‘nature’ after we have already damaged/altered it? And can this restored or recreated thing still be called ‘nature’? Is there really a separation between nature and culture?

3. What is the aim of art? Can we value art on simply one standard? Or can we deny art on simply one standard?

To clear my mind I reviewed some artists’ works:

1.German artist Andreas Gursky is regarded as one of the most successful photographers in the world. Here ‘success’ means that he has pushed the boundaries of photography further, he brings us an unique, open view of the world that strikes us with awe. His artistic success is also recognised by collectors who pay millions for his work. But in order to produce the work he has travelled globally, and his work does not directly point to anything environmental.

2.Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky has photographed man-transformed nature globally. The enormous scale, near-abstract composition and colour in his work have convinced the international audience about his talent and abilities. Some of his work has also been used for environmental campaigns. Apart from intense global travelling, in recent years he has also started shooting from helicopters. So the question here is that, will the positive influence of his work offset his massive carbon-footprint? In other words, can his artistic career success be partly denied by his less environmental-friendly methodology?

3. British artist Richard Long does walks for his work. This method seems to have the least impact on the natural environment. But getting to his global walking destinations surely results in a big carbon footprint. In order to share his remote walks with us, he often transports rocks from his walks to international galleries, print photographs and books. Such activities do not directly ‘restore’ any ‘natural environment’, nor can it be really described as ‘benign’.

4.British artist Andy Goldsworthy often works locally, using natural materials as how he finds them. This way seems to have less impact on nature. But we only get to see his works through exhibitions or publications. The production of photographs, books, exhibitions, plus his global travelling will again consume natural resources.

From above artists’ work, I would argue that the ‘benefits’ of such art to people are multi-faced, mostly in cultural, intellectual, or aesthetic ways. Such benefits are not the same to the ‘benefits’ that art can do for nature. As the latter should be more materialistic, otherwise it will go back to its social benefits. To produce art, as to do many other human activities in contemporary Western world, will consume some natural resources. The more successful the artists are (here success means international recognition), the more natural resources they are likely to consume, the bigger carbon-footprint they are likely to leave. It is not possible to have a real ‘benign’ way of working, but it is certainly possible to choose working methods that are more environmentally friendly.

I then looked at other artists who directly address environmental issues, here are some examples:

1.American artist Agnes Denes. For ‘Tree Mountain 1995’ project, she brought together 10,000 people to plant a tree each on some huge reclaimed gravel pits in Finland. In 1982, for her other project ‘Wheatfield: A Confrontation’, Agnes Denes grew wheat crops on a two-acre land in downtown Manhattan, just two blocks from Wall Street. From a land valued at $4.5 billion, she harvested wheat crop worth only £158. (2) ‘Wheatfield’ is certainly rich in meanings, however, the irony is that after the harvest, the crop was exhibited internationally instead of getting consumed by people who are hungry.

2. German artist Joseph Beuys proposed to plant 7,000 oak trees in the city of Kassel. Each tree was also accompanied by a basalt column which formed a ‘coupling of the organic and inorganic, old and new, the static and growing.’(3) The idea of coupling stones is artistically sound, however to what extent does it justify that fact that all the stones had to be quarried freshly, and that another scar was left on earth’s surface?

3.Artist Buster Simpson was concerned with the damage to water and wildlife resulting from acid rain. For his project ‘The Hudson Headwaters Purge-Anti-acid Treatment’ from 1983 to 1991, he dropped numerous disks of soft chalk limestone into the Hudson River. ‘The limestone neutralise or ‘sweetens’ acidic waters for a limited time...Simpson’s work attempts to revive ailing waters through chemistry and art.’ (4)

4. In 1990 artist Viet NGO created a system to treat waste water using natural biological means for his ‘Devil’s Lake Wastewater Treatment’ project. He describes the work as a ‘fusion of engineering, architectural planning and art.’ (5)

From such examples, I sense that artistic works on environmental issues are always ‘restorative’ or ‘aiming at reducing human damages on nature, and such activities are often symbolic. The scales of their ‘restorative impact’ vary; the impact of one individual artist is often temporary and limited. However, what matters more is the messages they collectively send out, which will radiate into the contemporary culture, influence people’s thoughts and behaviour, therefore become more ‘life friendly’.

Meanwhile, working on environmental issues requires more knowledge than simply artistic or aesthetic skills. Biology, ecology, physics, chemistry, engineering, and even political skills are often called in. Bigger impacts are more likely to happen when cross-discipline collaborations and public participation happen.

To work as an artist is to bring some kind of ‘benefits’ to people. But whether to work as an environmental artist, or to work as an artist who also concerns about nature, is the decision for each artist to make. If we decide to be the latter, how and to what extent the environmental concerns influence our work is perhaps what I am exploring in this residency.

Reference:

1. Nadine Andrew, http://www.lifefriendlyimpact.org.uk/

2. P104, Land Art, by Ben Tufnell, London: Tate Publishing, 2006

3. P105, Land Art, by Ben Tufnell, London: Tate Publishing, 2006

4. P166, Land and Environmental Art, by Jeffery Kastner and Brian Wallis, New York: Phaidon, 1998

5. P166, Land and Environmental Art, by Jeffery Kastner and Brian Wallis, New York: Phaidon, 1998