Text and Images by Clara Boulard,
MRes Moving Image, Central Saint Martins
Tenuta Dello Scompiglio – The Estate
The Art for the Environment International Artist Residency Programme (AER) was launched in 2015 by member of the UAL Research Centre for Sustainable Fashion and UAL Chair of Art and the Environment Professor Lucy Orta and coordinated by CSF Associate Curator Camilla Palestra.
Clara Boulard from the MRes Moving Image course at Central Saint Martins was selected for this years’ AER 2017 Residency at the Associazione Culturale dello Scompiglio, Tuscany, Italy. Clara reports back to the Postgraduate Community at UAL here:
Under the influence – immaginazione
When I arrived at Pisa airport I had no idea where I was going to. It was part of my process to not research too much about the area and discover it with my own eyes and through my body, during the residency.
In the car I was hypnotized by the landscape that became more and more natural leaving the city and its buildings behind us. The Tenuta Dello Scompiglio where I was going to spend two weeks, is an area of 200 Hectares situated in the Vorno Hills, in the Tuscan region of Italy. Historically the estate was a self-sufficient farm, cultivating olives, vines and fruit. Nowadays it is still running as a farm producing wine, olive oil and vegetables that are consumed in the restaurant on the estate. Plus, a gallery space and a theater have been constructed to present art work, as installation or dance, music performance.
I arrived on a Monday afternoon in this magical environment, where few houses from different colors where placed in the décor. I followed the instructions given in the email when I arrived in the space to then meet the team in charge of the cultural space. They showed me the house where I will be staying, it was located near the exhibition space and the offices. Very well organized, food was already in the fridge with fruits and vegetables.
Photo of the gallery space and the theater
The next day I met Angel Moya Garcia, the curator looking after me. During our first meeting we talked about my work, about the Scompiglio area, the forest and the theater where I will showcase my video installation. In the weeks leading up to my arrival, Angel had proposed to me that I finish my two week residency with a video installation which would be installed in the main theater to showcase the work I will produce and that they would also keep it open to the public for a month. This amazing opportunity was going to be a real challenge in order to showcase a work after just two weeks of creation.
I did not know clearly that I was the only resident, but it was at the end of the day when the office closed and people went home that I realized that I will spend my nights completely alone on the estate! During the first few nights, the realization of solitude and fear of darkness took over my mental space and made be become very introspective, questioning a lot myself around space, light, dark, imagination… These early days I remember that I wrote a lot to protect myself and carried out lots of observations. I was confronting this fear of going by myself at night walk in the forest, something that I finally did half way through the residency.
photo of the forest/solitude FaceTime conversation
Days passed and my comprehension, perception of the area changed and evolved constantly. During the day, I was going to walk in the mountains, with camera and sound recorder to capture specific moments. I was feeling completely in osmosis with the nature, while exploring. But as soon as the dark started to envelop the space around me, it was like an enemy. I don’t know why my perception shifted totally with the presence of dark, but I can say that it was a strong feeling that was translated through my body.
photo credit Alberto Gualteri
I had the chance to share everything I was feeling with Angel, the curator, and he advised me to use these feelings and try to understand how to translate this fear, how to transmit it through installation and video. And also to transmit what I think about that fear, my mood of thinking it and what I wanted to present. I realise that during this residency, I have learned a great deal about my practice and its relation to a curator or technician. I see that more as a team work than a command. It was interesting to see how the installation evolved following certain discussion and encounters.
The first week then, was a mixed of experimentation and a roller-coaster of sensations and feelings. I learned to understand and analyse them in order to drag them into a video installation and transmit these weird mixed sensations I was encountering.
photo the theater testing projection
I spent lots of time in the nature but also inside the theatre where I will have to showcase my video installation. The technician Paulo Morelli was offering me lots of support and solution for all my projection set up needs and ideas. It was so rewarding to have the possibility to play and try different technical factors, equipment or software that I didn’t have the chance to encounter before. The organisation gave me lot of independence and allowed me conduct my work within a rhythm and at my rhythm. I was sleeping in a house just next to the theater meaning that I could access it as much as I wanted.
The different installations spread in the estate was inspiring and playful to discover artist’s work in a natural environment and architecture vestiges.
After few days, I created a kind of a routine where everyday, a new element was building into the project and questioning art in a more general sense. This residency was a real opportunity for me to have space and time to challenge myself and my practice. Discussions with Angel and the rest of the crew were crucial in this development.
This residency was a real experience and gave me the opportunity to challenge myself and my practice. It pushes me out of my comfort zone and allow me and my perception of the environment and the art world in a different way, with keeping in mind my main interest and inspiration which is perception and human sensations.
Photographs from the video installation:
Below is the text Angel wrote for the opening event of the video installation:
Clara Boulard (born Paris, 1993, lives and works in London) is currently a post-graduate student in Moving Image at Central Saint Martins at the University of the Arts in London. The artist has been awarded a residency at the Associazione Culturale Dello Scompiglio thanks to the multidisciplinary approach to her research and a project in which she hopes to develop a possible sustainable relationship between humanity and the planet. Her work explores how our perception and individual cultural context makes us more aware of our surroundings to better understand the importance of the space in which we live. As the formal conclusion of the residency at Scompiglio from 4 to 18 September, a video installation will be presented on the 16 September.
The work, developed in the Performance Space at Scompiglio, examines, through two looped videos, the capability of imagination connected to the darkness that envelops us when the night comes and we find ourselves in the middle of nature or in a context that is not usual for us. A work on the borders that divide the internal and the external, security and possibility, reality and imagination when confronted with something we cannot control, our primordial fears of the dark and our need for a place to feel safe. At the same time the work casts itself as an activator di consciousness, as a reflection on the manipulation that our steps and actions can accomplish in a daily context without a real and true awareness.
I would like to thank the Associazione Culturale dello Scompiglio for hosting me as resident artist, and for supporting me during my stay. I would especially like to thank Angel Moya Garcia, who gave me this opportunity to exhibit my work and work closely with a curator. Lastly, thank you to Camilla Palestra and Professor Lucy Orta from UAL Centre for Sustainable Fashion, for making this residency possible and for this amazing opportunity to explore my practice in another context.
Related Links:
- The Art for the Environment International Residency Programme
- UAL Research Centre for Sustainable Fashion
- Lucy Orta UAL Research Profile
- AER Associazione Culturale dello Scompiglio Residency Details
- Dello Scompiglio Website
The Art for the Environment International Residency Programme (AER):
In 2015, internationally acclaimed artist, Professor Lucy Orta UAL Chair of Art for the Environment – Centre for Sustainable Fashion, launched the Art for the Environment Residency Programme (AER), in partnership with residency programmes across Europe. Applicants can choose from a 2 to 4 week period at one of the hosting institutions, to explore concerns that define the twenty-first century – biodiversity, environmental sustainability, social economy, human rights – and through their artistic practice, envision a world of tomorrow.
Through personal research, studio production time, critiques and mentoring sessions with Lucy Orta and a selection of Europe’s most exciting cultural institutions, the residency programme provides a platform for creative individuals, working across various disciplines, to imagine and create work that can make an impact on how we interact with the environment and each other.
A distinguished selection panel assess the applicants for this unique opportunity to partake in the UAL Art for the Environment Residency Programme.
NOTE: Applications accepted from UAL graduates, postgraduates and recent alumni (within 12 months from graduation date).