Speculative Landscapes was a collective art research project emerging from Custom Food Lab that explored the potential for being otherwise in landscapes. It was sited in the unique coastal landslides of The Warren in Folkestone (UK) which we speculatively occupied as a place for collectively imagining a regenerative institution.
the GeoCinema “Signals and Storms” Laboratory at Freeport Institute
A landslide and site of rare geological interest on the border between the UK and France, the Folkestone Warren presents an opportunity for readings of potential institutions of the future. Subject to multiple complex relationships of dependence and invasion, it is one of the most active landslides in Britain. It is also one of the most surveyed: monitored and observed for shifts in climate, erosion, geology and is said to have been one of the first geological explorations in Europe. The landslide originates 40 meters underground, an earthly reality that is controlled through vast terraforming projects and monitored on the surface. Through Speculative Landscapes, the Warren was explored as a hovering network of geological stories, vast underground reserves of disruption, knowledges, journeys, loves and memories, spread across and below like a blanket of tangled plants that inhabit the landscape – goosegrass, knotweed, sea beets, sour fig, brambles and ivy, exploring relationality on scales from the atomic to the interplanetary.
Members:
Madeleine Collie (b. 1978, Australia) is an academic, artist and curator who lives between Folkestone, UK and Melbourne, Australia. She was the curator of the award winning The Ash Project from 2016-2019.
Marta Fernández Calvo (b. 1978, Rioja, Spain) is a Spanish artist based in Madrid. She works with food, love, and care and has been awarded numerous prizes for her work both nationally and internationally and has taken part in many international artist residencies.
Rubiane Maia (b. 1979, Vitoria, Brazil) is a Brazilian visual artist based between Folkestone, UK and Vitoria, Brazil. An award winning writer in Portuguese, her artwork is a hybrid practice across performance, video, installation and text, occasionally flirting with drawing and collage.
Cherry Truluck (b. 1981 London, UK) is an artist and researcher (formally trained as an architect) living and working out of Folkestone and Frome, UK. Through her own work and as director of Custom Food Lab, she seeks to rethink ecological strategies for commensality and sharing space.