the sustainable institution
Artist Residencies
In partnership with LUMA Arles and Rupert Vilnius, centre for art, residencies and education
October 2023 – April 2024
the sustainable institution is an open call for all creative practitioners including artists, architects, design studios and scientists to develop material or immaterial prototypes in the fight against climate change and mitigate the environmental burden of exhibition making. The grant is intended to provide support towards the research and development of a prototype, an early sample, model or idea of a concept or process towards sustainable exhibition making.
Three creative practitioners have been selected to develop a prototype for sustainable exhibition making with a grant of 20.000 EUR. Each successful applicant will be mentored by the jury over a research and development period, with a studio at their respective institution between March–April 2024. All information will be hosted on www.sustainable-institution.com.
The jury included Jan Boelen (Atelier LUMA, Artistic Director) Mae-ling Lokko (Architectural scientist, Educator and Designer), Kim Kraczon (Director of Materials at Ki Culture, Advisor at Gallery Climate Coalition), Lucia Pietroiusti (Curator), Asad Raza (Artist), Viktorija Šiaulytė (Rupert, Director) and Helen Turner (E-WERK Luckenwalde, Artistic Director and Chief Curator).
Selected Practitioners
Beth Collar
Location: E-WERK Luckenwalde
Prototype: A large-capacity outdoor wood-fired kiln and a sequence of harvestable ‘tiny’ woodlands
Artist Mentor: Mae-ling Lokko (Architectural scientist, designer and educator)
Beth Collar’s proposal to the sustainable institution is an interleaving, reciprocal project consisting primarily of a large-capacity outdoor wood-fired kiln and a sequence of harvestable ‘tiny’ woodlands. Underlying all aspects of the project is a sustainable and sustaining community. The project would seek to grow a community of kiln users who would learn ‘on the job’ and be able to teach others as time went on. This proposal seeks to reclaim the full production methods and humanise the firing process, connecting artists with their materials and processes in a more embodied way, and empowering them to run their own burns. By cultivating a space for collaboration and making, the proposal goes beyond the bricks of the kiln itself, fostering lasting connections that can have a sustained and positive impact on the artist scene in Berlin as well as providing a precedent for other similar projects elsewhere in Germany and beyond.
About Beth Collar (b. Cambridge, England, 1984)
Solo projects include The Unforgiven, Sundy, London (2022), Basher Dowsing, von ammon co., Washington DC, U.S.A. (2021); SHANE, a collaboration with Elif Saydam, Zarinbal Khoshbakht, Cologne, Germany(2021); “End Quote,” stadium, Berlin (2020); Daddy Issues, Dilston Grove, London, with Matt’s Gallery and Southwark Park Galleries (2019); Retrogression, a collaboration with Eoghan Ryan, 427 gallery, Riga, Latvia (2019); Thinking Here Of How The Words Formulate Inside My Head As I Am Just Thinking, Waldo at Mathew Gallery, New York (2018); Cloaked Output Vol 2: Spirals of Focus, Primary, Nottingham (2018); Seriously, Mark Tanner Sculpture Award, Standpoint, London (2017); and 11/50, Fig2 at the ICA, London (2015). Recent performances have taken place at Why Words Now, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and Art Hub Copenhagen (2021) CentrumCentrum, Szczecin, Poland (2020); Camden Arts Centre, London (2020). Group exhibitions include Doppel, two man show with Jesse Darling, A plus A, Venice, IT (2021), VON UTEN, two man exhibition with Shaun Motsi, Elvira, Frankfurt am Main, DE (2021), Kunstverein Kesselhaus, Bamberg, Germany (2020); Marlborough Contemporary, New York(2020); Bärenzwinger, Berlin (2019); Cell Project Space, London (2018); Kunstverein München, Munich (2017); and KW, Berlin (2016). Since 2015 Collar has been an associated artist with the charity Waterloo Uncovered. Collar’s solo show at the Westfälischer Kunstverein will open at the end of October
Courtesy of Beth Collar
Kirsty Robertson
Location: LUMA Arles
Prototype: Acquisitions Contract, low-data solar powered website plan and materials guide
Mentor: Kim Kraczon (Conservator)
Artist Kirsty Robertson will work with The Centre for Sustainable Curating (CSC) and The Synthetic Collective (SC) to produce an acquisitions contract, low-data solar powered website plan and materials guide to support institutions in making their daily operations more sustainable. For this residency, the CSC and SC have come together to define and tackle the knowledge gaps in creating sustainable institutions, using their expertise in plastics, low-waste and low-carbon curating, pedagogy, and accessibility, as well as their location in a geographic region.
The Centre for Sustainable Curating (CSC) supports museum research, exhibitions, visual/digital production, and pedagogy focused on environmental and social justice. Located in the Department of Visual Arts at Western University (Canada), CSC projects focus on waste, pollution, and climate crisis, and the development of exhibitions and artworks with low carbon and waste footprints.
The Synthetic Collective (SC) is an interdisciplinary collaboration among visual artists, humanities scholars, and scientists centred on plastic pollution in the Great Lakes watershed of North America (a massive system of lakes that holds more than 20 per cent of the world’s surface freshwater reserves).
Courtesy of Kirsty Robertson
bones tan jones
Location: Rupert, Vilnius
Prototype: Herbal, plant and magical guide, working towards a sustainable performative practice
Mentor: Asad Raza (Artist)
bones tan jones will continue working on Parasites of Pangu, previously performed at the Serpentine Galleries in London in 2019, which has since evolved and taken many forms: Sculpture, Installation, 2D works, Film and Writing. jones will use all these forms to re-imagine the opera, coinciding with the publication of the written opera score/novel, which also takes the form of a guide to herbs, plants and magic.
Parasites of Pangu tells the story of 5 trans nomads, who were reborn onto a wretched earth. Through speculative fiction, sci-fi and queer storytelling, this opera weaves ancient Chinese mythologies, herbal knowledge and magical thinking to paint a tapestry of inspiration and hope of building new worlds in community, to the audience.
A new body of paintings and sculptures is being developed that will also serve as a stage for the opera performance. The paintings will tell the story of the myth, while the sculptures will take figurative forms reminiscent of war memorials found on plinths in colonial cities, except that they will depict trans people, queer people, disabled people, all in positions of power, showing the resilience of their/our struggle.
About bones tan jones (b. Liverpool, England, 1993)
bones tan jones is a queer heretic whose work traverses materials, disciplines and time lines.
raised in a church choir in the northwest of the UK, on the borderlands of mythical Wales and enchanted England, tan jones’s work has ne'er strayed far from the ecclesiastic rituals of worship, only in tan jones’s world, the church has been burnt, the yew trees thrive in the ashes, and god is trans.
bones tan jones presents their living praxis ‘optimystic dystopia’ as a spiritual practice. an eternal storyteller, alternative realities are explored through alter egos, retellings of ancient Chinese and Celtic mythologies through creating; symphonies/operas/psalms/triptychs/sigils/stele/installations/interventions/interactive workshops.
remaining open, so the ancestors can speak through, bones has collaborated with the ghosts of dead artists, unknowingly channelled ancient seal script inscriptions of their families’ clan symbol, and sung many a lullaby in the belly of trees thousands of years on this land.
this, is the work. this, is the way.
all tools, souvenirs and tales collected on the way are offered up to you, as an art, of sorts.
Parasites of Pangu, 2019 at Serpentine Galleries. Courtesy of Tallie Eigeland and bones tan jones
