Across The Landscape
Melanie King & Jess Holdengarde
Exhibition at The Margate School

Across The Landscape was an exhibition by myself and Jess Holdengarde, which took place at The Margate School in April 2024. I have now produced a page on my website, showing installation images. You can find more information below.

Across The Landscape // 

Melanie King & Jess Holdengarde
The Margate School, 31-33 High St, Margate CT9 1DX, UK
Exhibition Open : Friday 19 to Wednesday 24 April 2024.
 

“ Science and art, matter and spirit, Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science - can they be goldenrod and asters for each other? When I am in their presence, their beauty asks me for reciprocity, to be the complementary colour, to make something beautiful in response” (Kimmerer, 2020)

Across the Landscape was a collaborative exhibition between Ramsgate based artist Melanie King and South African Glasgow based artist Jess Holdengarde. The exhibition showcased a collection of natural based explorations that have culminated from the two artists sharing, exploring and building upon their existing sustainable practices with one another.

Through conversation, knowledge exchange and collaborative practice, Jess and Melanie’s work has weaved together - across landscapes and boundaries- new and undeveloped plant-based recipes for analogue processing, printing & toning. Coming together, through the landscapes of Scotland, England and the Outer Hebrides, Melanie and Jess presented a series of new and existing work.

Jess exhibited some of her in-process works from her project, The Natural Process. This is a newly funded research and development project which explores the ethics of foraging, growing & harvesting local plant matter to brew, develop & test a collection of new & refined plant-based chemistry for analogue developers. The project had a specific focus on developing plant-based recipes from local landscapes & local plant matter available within Scotland. Jess’s sustainable silver gelatin prints are some of the examples of the new recipes that have been produced as part of this project. For the first time, she presented some of her deeper explorations into natural- based processes:

“Through working with local plants, I have drawn from personal healing methodologies including my own Reiki training, herbalism and somatic practices in the effort to open an effective embodied understanding of the more-than-human subjects of my work. From this, I have been drawn to the medicinal properties and folkloric traditions of the plants I have been foraging, photographing and developing with. In an attempt to have a more embodied practice , I have started working with plants at a more cellular and vibrational level. This has opened up exciting avenues with sound which can be heard in the collaborative work titled “Polymossphony.” The 35minute soundscape was produced through touch, singing, field recordings and the electro activity of moss which was amplified with a modular synthesizer. My hope with this body of work is to develop a more reciprocal and collaborative relationship to the plants I’m photographing & developing. I aim to provide my audience with the glimmers of what we have left in our current epoch so that we can consider the future”

Melanie’s project Acquaintance explored the creative possibilities of botanical cyanotype toning and sustainable photographic processes. This exploration considered how location-specific sustainable photographic processes can produce bodies of work that are materially connected to the landscape. This project was centered on the Peak District and surrounding areas, close to where Melanie grew up. This enquiry allowed Melanie to become reacquainted with the landscape, through the lens of photography and through the material engagement with plants identified in the environments she visited.

Melanie’s research includes her project, Submerged Landscapes. According to the Climate Central app , developed by Climate Scientists, Thanet, UK is likely to become an island again within the next decade. This is an ongoing project where Melanie documented the affected areas before they are submerged, using the materiality of the sea within the production of the work. Within these images, Melanie has used film developers made from bladderwrack seaweed, sea spinach to make anthotypes and salt water from the sea to “fix” lumen prints.

The exhibition, through the display of recipes, conversational mediums, analogue prints, moving image and sound demonstrates how it is possible to produce works that are intrinsically and materially connected to the landscape and to one another’s processes. Through conversations, sustainable processes, methodologies and queer lenses of thought,

Melanie and Jess give us an insight into the more-than-human experience. We see this show as a lens of intertwined, connected and sustainable methods of working as artists in an era of ecological ruin. The aim of the show was to encourage the ongoing dialogue around the future of analogue practices in the UK and more broadly.

We create the Universe: artists and scientists take on the Big Bang by Hannah Redler-Hawes

Pillars of Creation, Lenticular Print, 2017 was included in the 2021 exhibition ‘To the Edge of Time’ at KU Leuven, Belgium. This exhibition was curated by Hannah Redler-Hawes and Prof Thomas Hertog. Hannah Redler-Hawes has recently published ‘We create the Universe…’; an article for the Science Museum which reflects upon the exhibition. You can read the article here.

A quote from the text;

“Using lenticular image technology, King takes viewers on a journey from the untreated raw pixel data captured by the Hubble Space Telescope to the stunning, more subjective, final image coloured by humans on Earth” 

This print was produced as part of my practice-based PhD “Ancient Light: Rematerialising The Astronomical Image”. I made this piece, speculating on the mediations present within contemporary astronomical images. I worked with Dr Claudia Mignone and Zolt Levay to produce this artwork.

Surfacing
Artist Blog For Island Darkroom

I have written a blog post for Island Darkroom, a darkroom and gallery space on the Isle of Lewis. In the text, I have included musings and references from books that I was reading whilst in residence.

Here’s an excerpt;

“… the residency rejuvenated me artistically. I was reminded of the ‘true love’ in my practice – the feeling of being in a wild landscape while the wind lashes back my hair, viewing the milky way and the inner depths of our galaxy. The Isle of Lewis is sublime, containing layers of time in the rock strata, the dark night sky and the oceanic location with unpredictable coastal weather. It also reminded me of my love for unpredictability and experimentation, inherent in analogue photographic and accentuated with foraged materials. With plants, you can never be sure of the result you will achieve, as seasons change and environments alter over time. For me, the organic material has agency in the process, and I find it thrilling to see results in my work that I have limited control over.”

I will be showing work in an exhibition at Island Darkroom in Summer 2024.

Superjam Podcast

Earlier this year I recorded a podcast with Supajam and tutor David Maitland.  The students asked me lots of interesting questions, about my artistic practice. The students also asked questions about my experience of growing up in Manchester, being working class and how I co-created collectives after graduation. The students then mixed the podcast as part of the development of their studies.

“SupaJam is a unique group of Post-16 specialist music colleges based in Swanley, Canterbury and Brighton. We offer carefully and individually tailored placements to students who are looking for an inclusive alternative educational provision.

Our ethos is to provide a kind, supportive and non-judgemental educational experience that puts the students at the heart of everything we do, allowing them to thrive and achieve their full potential.”

 Exhibitions

I am pleased to exhibit ‘Acquaintance’ at Grounded, opening this week. The show has been curated by Kate Bellis.

‘Stories on earth.
Narratives inspired by the human and the non-human entanglements rooted to the land.’

Grounded, Gallery MI, Wirksworth, Derbyshire, UK. 7 June to 01 September 2024.

FORMAT24: Future Now Artists & Curator Panel Discussion

I am pleased to be participating in the FORMAT24: Future Now Artists & Curator Panel Discussion on 20 June at 6pm, which will take place online.

‘Join us for an online panel discussion led by FORMAT24: Future Now curator Jodi Kwok alongside Future Now exhibiting artists Deacon Lui, Kota Ishida, Melanie King and Sergey Novikov. This talk will explore the ideas and processes of how each artist produces their work, leading to a discussion about Future Now and how each artist has responded to the exhibition theme, followed by a Q&A.

‘Future Now’ is an exhibition exploring ways in which the medium of photography can be used and interpreted, demonstrating this through varied approaches that include installation, 3D sculpture, archives, and alternative analogue processes.’

Click here for more information and booking.

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