Locus Amoenus

Curated by Sophie Goodchild and Sam Hanner

Exhibiting Artists: Camilla Bliss, Enorê, Luca George, Sophie Goodchild, Luey Graves, May Hands and Sam Hanner

22/07/21-29/07/12

The Function Suite, Stratford, London

In places in the exhibition, the anthropogenic impulse fictionalises the potential creation of new land, rich in nutrients and hope, through draining of the wild wetlands, ordering the mass of marsh into a grid of fields and ditches to feed the harmonious island communes. All at the expense of the many other dimensions of life-forms.

Elsewhere the exhibition is taken over by the agency of the amphibian or the processes of formation at work in the sodden bogs of soil and clay. As Eutrophication leads to the build up of algae the surface of the swamp seems to turn to a solid green plane, enchanting the people that tentatively push through this place.

Through the swamping of this land the water extracts minerals from the geology and, in turn, plants absorb minerals from the water. We read the plants to make contact with the rock. We read the rock through the medium of water. We read the work through the ecology of the swamp.

We invite six artists to respond to the idea of exhibition as swamp; drained and swamped and drained again. Where microbial communities meet there is a transition into both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Nutrients are traded and recycled, and where it may seem stagnant, slow processes occur and bubbles begin to collect.

All photography by Sam Hanner