DIASPORE’S DIASPORA

From the 1935 definition of English botanist Arthur Tansley, through cybernetics models of the 70’s, up to the present day, we would like to explore the definition of ecosystems; how are they conceived, experienced and reinvented on a practical and cultural level?

This programme of events is to respond to the creation of multiple gardens on the Royal College of Art campus and in particular to the creation of a hanging garden designed as a plant library retracing British history as well as displaying a survey of plants found within an urban environment.

Programme:

18th May 2016
SPECULATIVE BEACHING
a conversation between John Hill and Lou-Atessa Marcellin
Paced by musical disruptions in the hypothetical scenario of a desert island, John Hill and Lou-Atessa Marcellin will engage in a dialogue around living systems. How does one define a living system? Is the garden a machine or an organism and how might thinking about gardens help us to find the border
between the two?

John Hill is an artist, organiser and educator. As a foundin member of the collective LuckyPDF he has exhibited internationally and been commissioned by major UK institutions, including Hayward Gallery and Frieze Foundation. He is a Graduate Researcher at Liverpool John Moores University contributing to the Uses of Art group, a partner of L’Internationale,and a lecturer on the undergraduate fine art course.

Lou-Atessa Marcellin is an artist whose practice explores how aesthetic ideologies are constructed and the ways in which they structure our societal norms. To address these paradigms she uses the form of the garden and the environment as an allegory to engage in a critical discourse around an idealised and manufactured image of nature.

19th May 2016
CUTICLE
Join us for the inauguration of the new Sculpture Garden, refurbished by the Sustainable Food Society. The party will feature an exhibition curated by Finn Thomson and featuring works by RCA students, entitled ‘Cuticle.’ The event will
be followed by our Cafe Royale Chef Chris Ilankovan’s much loved Supper Club series, in which he treats us to a delicious Sri Lankan menu.

20th May 2016
THE PUBLIC(S) LAND GRAB –
Tom Dobson
Tom Dobson comes to present his work with Public Works and their most recent project. The Public(s) Land Grab is a live research project which takes a stance against the inequalities intrinsic to capital-led urban development. As developers become increasingly irresponsible we question whether residents can reappropriate development as a too to level social inequalities and reclaim land and resource for public benefit? Like most citizen-led initiatives in London at the moment this starts with a community garden: the Loughborough Farm in Loughborough Junction, South London.

Public Works is an art and architecture practice working within and towards public space. All public works projects address the question how the public realm is shaped by its various users and how existing dynamics can infor further proposals. Public Works focus is the production and extension of a particular public space through participation and collaborations. The practice has been growing organically since 1999, with its initial founding members Kathrin Böhm, Sandra Denicke-Polcher,Torange Khonsari, Andreas Lang and Stefan Saffer working in different constellations until 2006 before formally coming together as public works.

25th May 2016
THE ESOTERIC GARDEN
At talk by Federico Campagna
The Renaissance garden as a metaphor for a form of knowledge beyond the contemporary technical appearance of reality.

Federico Campagna is a philosopher and writer. He is currently a PhD can- didate in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art, London and works as a rights manager at Verso Books. In 2009 he started a long-term collaboration with the Italian Autonomia philosopher Franco Berardi ‘Bifo’ and is the co-founded the multilingual platform for critical theory Through Europe.

Federico’s latest books are The Last Night (Zero Books, 2013), and What We Are Fighting For(Pluto Press, 2012). He has written for publications such as E-Flux, The White Review, E.R.O.S. Journal, The Guardian, Anarchist Studies
Journal, Corriere della Sera, Alfabeta2, Adbusters.

26th May 2016
THE MYCOLOGICAL TWIST:
Eloïse Bonneviot and Anne de Boer
Educational DJ/VJ SPECIAL.
Continuing its reflection on networks as support for sustainability, and studying Mycelium as a structure similar than human activities, the performance will combine DJ set, readings, informative visuals and food. The event aims to embody apparently paradoxical approaches, small and big, beautiful and practical as those which inform each other in the construction of the network.

London-based artists Anne de Boer and Eloïse Bonneviot met while studying at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and went on to studying the MFA at Goldsmith College in London; they both work together and independently and have shown internationally. In 2014 they set up the Mycological Twist project as a permanent installation in the back garden of Jupiter Woods’.
The project has since been exhibited in numerous forms and spaces such a Riverside in Bern and Salford’s Regent Trading Estate.

1st June 2016
VTOPOS
A series of talks about public space-gardens and urban agriculture.
PEA PROPOSALS, 2–3PM
An Artists talk by Sarah Staton and Demelza Watts founders of pea proposals. Pea proposals will talk about the evolving play between sculpture and gardens, proposing the garden to be thought of as a meta plinth for sculpture.

FRICHE STUDIO, 3.30-4PM
Friche presents their project to create a suspended indoor edible garden for the Royal College of Art.

FUTURE FARM, 4–4:30PM
Future Farm Lab explores the future of our food and what we can do to shape a more sustainable and resilient food system. Along with their presentation they will be serving up some thought-provoking and taste-tantalising refreshments!

AGROECOLOGY, 4:30–5PM
Edward Brial, John Bertolaso and Gabriel Brückner The trio will
be presenting their research on the future of agroecology, looking at the potential of indigenous orphan crops to contribute to more resilient agricultural systems and to food security worldwide.

BAR FOR PURISTS, 6:30–9:30PM
Embassy Gardens, Nine Elms Ln,
London SW8 5BL
‘Bar for Purists’ by Platform Desayuno @Embassy Gardens. A mobile kitchen meal. Please join Nora Silva and the Platform Desayuno Society, as she wheels out her mobile kitchen to Embassy Gardens for a meal entitled,‘Bar for Purists’.

Home Info Contact

DIASPORE’S DIASPORA