Future Knowledge is a thought-provoking exhibition exploring the role of visual culture in continuing to raise awareness of the effects of climate change. Building upon last year’s inaugural edition (20 May – 25 June 2017), this exhibition brings together artworks, prototypes and projects by artists, designers and thinkers from a range of different disciplines, in order to showcase fascinating and diverse creative responses to environmental concerns.

This dynamic show begins with an aerial performance of loop (commissioned by The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh) by ballet dancer and choreographer Eve Mutso on the evening of the preview party. The marks she makes with her pointe shoes in graphite powder will remain in situ as a floor drawing, as part of the first section of the exhibition, which reflects on the interconnectedness of all living beings over a vast timescale.

Also on display in this first section is American artist Rachel Sussman’s epic visual timeline stretching back 750 million years; Norwegian artist Eline McGeorge’s montage and weaving works symbolising an environmental cycle of damage and repair; and British artist Tania Kovats’ vast sculptures of steel and salt which reflect the theory that Earth has one interconnected, self-regulating ocean.

Moving through the exhibition visitors will be introduced to environmental innovations, revealing new site-specific methods for understanding our domestic and local relationships to systems of production, systematic waste, and inadvertent pollution. Artist and designer Lucy Kimbell displays a fascinating prototype for domestic wallpaper that changes colour over time in response to UK air pollutants, and Andy Owen will present a new conceptual installation that takes a fresh look at innovations in farming domesticated livestock.

In the adjacent room there is a projection of Continuing Bodies, a lung shaped sculpture set in Oxford’s ancient woodland Wytham Woods. The sculpture was created using mycelium, which is being pioneered by bio-fabrication platform Ecovative as a sustainable building material that is grown rather than manufactured, and was made collectively by Modern Art Oxford’s How Nature Builds group participants.

The final gallery space will be used as a public studio, demonstrating ingenuity in the face of climate change as well as hosting events and activities that invite visitors to join in. Prototypes and working models on display include pioneering architectural biomimicry by Exploration Architecture, demonstrating the design and production of materials, structures and systems that are modelled on biological entities and processes.

Future Knowledge is part of the nationwide project Season for Change, which invites artists and arts organisations from across the country to explore climate change through creative presentation. Visit exhibition website.

Collection Artist(s)

Glossary

  • Design

    The arrangement of elements or details in an artefact or a work of art.

  • Drawing

    The depiction of shapes and forms on a flat surface chiefly by means of lines although colour and shading may also be included. Materials most commonly used are pencil, ink, crayon, charcoal, chalk and pastel, although other materials, including paint, can be used in combination.

  • Edition

    All copies of a book, print, portfolio, sculpture, etc., issued or produced at one time or from a single set of type. Printed works can be made in an edition of between one and many thousands of copies. With most printing techniques the plate or screen will become worn if very many prints are made, so to maintain quality (and exclusivity) editions of original prints are usually kept below one hundred copies and normally average between thirty and fifty copies. Prints made up of several different plates can be extremely complicated and time-consuming to edition, so in these cases editions are kept low for practical reasons. Sculptural editions are a set of cast sculptures taken from the same mould or master. These editions are usually much lower, consisting of no more than six casts. Though each cast in an edition might have a lower value than a unique piece, it may be a more effective way of offsetting costs of an expensive process such as bronze casting.

  • Installation

    An artwork comprised of many and various elements of miscellaneous materials (see mixed media), light and sound, which is conceived for and occupies an entire space, gallery or site. The viewer can often enter or walk around the installation. Installations may only exist as long as they are installed, but can be re-created in different sites. Installation art emerged in the 1960s out of Environmental Art (works of art which are three-dimensional environments), but it was not until the 1970s that the term came into common use and not until the late 1980s that artists started to specialise in this kind of work, creating a genre of ‘Installation Art’. The term can also be applied to the arrangement of selected art works in an exhibition.

  • Sculpture

    A three-dimensional work of art. Such works may be carved, modelled, constructed, or cast. Sculptures can also be described as assemblage, in the round, relief, and made in a huge variety of media. Contemporary practice also includes live elements, as in Gilbert & George 'Living Sculpture' as well as broadcast work, radio or sound sculpture.