Earth Day at Central Saint Martins: A seat at the table, by Marina Tasca, Post-Grad Community Ambassador and MA Illustration student at Camberwell College of Arts

To celebrate Earth Day 2022, UAL Climate Emergency Network whipped up a whole day of collective experiences in the name of social and ecological justice. The event, ‘EARTH DAY: Appetite for Justice’, included fairs, workshops, performances and exhibitions throughout all 6 UAL campuses and was free and open to the entire UAL community and invited guests. Tables were predominantly hosted by UAL students, staff and alumni, exchanging ideas, engaging in conversations about climate justice and thinking about collective ways of taking action.

At Central Saint Martins, the place was buzzing with movement among the many installations presented at one of the day’s main attractions, the Earth Fair, over 30 stands and interactive installations along the Street and Crossing at CSM.

Curated by CSM alumna Rebecca Faulkner (MaRCH), and coordinated by Post-Grad Community, “Shifting Sands, Migrating Grains” introduced her sand-related research project developed during the Art for the Environment Residency (AER) at Groundwork Gallery, Norfolk, in 2021. The installation was an informative-performative piece to raise awareness over the global and local issues of sand extraction, inviting the visitors to rethink our almost invisible relationship with this over-consumed resource.

Surrounded by white bags filled with sand, Rebecca and her colleague Victoria Noales, were ‘buying’ a variety of materials from their visitors and ‘paying’ them back for those with 18g of high-grade silica sand, which they would carefully weigh and place into a small takeaway bag. As a document on display would tell, the 18g of sand represented the consumption of 18kg of sand being consumed per person in a daily basis nowadays in the world - 50 billion metric tons of sand every year.

Download Rebecca's investigation into the global an local implications of sand extraction.

Still at the Crossing, a stand by “Letters to the Earth” in collaboration with the UAL Climate Emergency Network was informing visitors over the global participatory campaign that gave origin to the book of same title in 2019, while also inviting people to sit and write new letters to the Earth, in “an opportunity to bring all your fears, your frustrations and your love, to process what is happening to the world and to create something new.” (Letters to the Earth).

Between the post-grad student lead installations present at the Crossing were also: Climate Colapse by Lu Zheng (PG Dip Visual Communication); Ecovado by Arina Shokowi (MA Material Futures); Ferns of Future by Isaac Wihelm (MA Biodesign), and others. At CSM Street, also a huge variety of approaches and initiatives towards climate justice could be seen. Among them: A Drop in the Ocean by Santa Ramaherison (MA Material Futures); Eating DNA by Risa Ueno (MA Art & Science); Who Owns the Sea? by Pat Naldi (MA Fine Art) and others.

At “Fortune Tell-Us” Purvisha Sutaria and Molly Simpson (MA Innovation Management students) would guide the visitors through a flip tarot experience, as part of a reflection on how we can build inner resources to better address the crisis. Thinking long term, they aimed on encouraging participants to think about the different roles one can take in order to regenerate and change the narratives of the future.

Beside the fair, the workshops and performances going on throughout the day at CSM, three exhibitions were on spotlight and are still open for visiting:

Planetary Assemblages at the Lethaby Gallery - “presents the work of artist collectives Monsoon Assemblages and Manifest Data Lab in dialogue, visualises geo-physical, atmospherical and fossil fuel data to make climage change perceptible and public” (Lethaby Gallery).

Nature & Humans: The Road Back at CSM Window Galleries - shows “work by second-year BA Graphic Communication Design students who consider the myriad ways we might row back from the brink of destruction. While acknowledging the scale of the problem, our students offer hope and encourage each of us to engage in positive action to combat climate change” (Nature & Humans). 15th March - 22nd May

Goddesses of King’s Cross at CSM Museum Window - presents a “new commission from CSM graduate Raksha Patel documenting the artist’s response to botanical drawings in the Museum & Study Collection which span the 16th to 19th centuries, a time of European exploration, trade and colonisation, when many plants were described from a Western perspective that altered or erased their value to indigenous communities” (Goddesses of King’s Cross). 14th Feb - 30th April

Related Links

• Climate Emergency Network
• Art for the Environment Residency
• Shifting Sands, Migrating Grains
• UAL Post-Grad Community

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