SPARK #30: SPARK Declares?
Sat 11 Jan 2025 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Manchester Museum (top floor), M13 9PL
Description
SPARK is now two and a half years old. In that time, atmospheric carbon has gone from 416.5 to approx 422 parts per million and multiple climate records have been broken. As a network of artists wanting to intervene in the trajectory towards climate breakdown, our first session of 2025 provides an opportunity to take stock and look ahead, taking the Culture Declares! declaration as a framework.
Culture Declares Climate And Ecological Emergency was founded in 2019, and was the first professional declaration movement, inspired by local governments who were declaring emergency. The call to action has been taken up by many sectors including Music Declares, Architects Declare, Health Declares, Heritage Declares, Business Declares, Tourism Declares and others.
The
core declaration states:
“We
declare that the Earth’s life-supporting systems are in collapse,
threatening biodiversity and human societies everywhere.
Alive
to the beauty of our planet, we unite to challenge the dominant
global power structures that fail to protect us as they disregard
scientific consensus, silence marginalised voices and perpetuate
ecocide.
As
Declarers, we take action to harness the power of arts and culture to
express heartfelt truths and address deep-rooted injustices, to care
for and create adaptive, resilient and joyful communities, and to
influence the urgent and necessary transformation of harmful global
systems.”
More info at https://www.culturedeclares.org/about/
Declarers are invited to adapt the declaration to make it meaningful to their work and context.
For this January session hosted by artist and SPARK co-ordinator Jane Lawson, we’ll take a brief look back at SPARK’s highlights since it started in summer 2022. We’ll then talk about whether we want to declare climate and ecological emergency, either as a network or as individuals, and what it might mean to us. We’ll use a simple manifesto-development technique to decide which parts of the Declaration feel right for SPARK and what we’d like to add. NB this doesn’t assume that SPARK will declare – that will come down to what people want to do on the day. If you can’t attend but have feelings either way, please let me know, either by emailing the SPARK list or emailing me individually on jane@castlefieldgallery.co.uk
For those that want to Declare as individuals, it’s a simple process, requiring a short description of your practice, your reason for declaring and an image. Simple and yet often surprisingly hard to get round to, so we’ll have some time to go through the process within the session; if you're thinking of Declaring, please bring your laptop or other device!
We’ll also take a brief look at the Culture Declares toolkit and resources such as the Blueprint for Change https://www.culturedeclares.org/resources/
The session will take place in the top floor classroom at Manchester Museum. This space is wheelchair accessible.
Manchester Museum access info https://www.museum.manchester.ac.uk/visit-us/access/ and directions https://www.museum.manchester.ac.uk/visit-us/
Jane Lawson
Jane
Lawson has spent the past twelve years working with fungi to loosen
the grip of capitalist realism on our collective imagination. She
also makes diagrams to help her understand the processes and
structures that shape our world and possible pathways to an
environmentally and socially just future. Her work is influenced by
the US Radical Mycology movement and informed by her previous
involvement in climate and anti-consumerist activism and work as a
researcher into corporate ethics.
Jane
has exhibited nationally and internationally since graduating from
the University of Salford in 2012. Recent projects include Being
Fungal (UK Fungus day event for Heart of Glass, 2023); Detox to
Delish (part of A Modest Show, 2022); a poster for Jade Montserrat’s
publication Tender Order (for Precarious Straits, 2021). In 2023 she
completed the MA in Art and Ecology at Goldsmiths.
Jane
was part of the ten-strong group that co-curated Manchester Art
Gallery’s Climate Justice gallery in 2021/2, using the Gallery’s
collection to highlight narratives around colonialism and
extractivism. In her role as Castlefield Gallery’s Artist
Environmental Lead she co-ordinates SPARK, a network of North
West-based artists wanting to intervene in the climate emergency.
www.janelawson.co.uk
https://www.instagram.com/msjanelawson/
SPARK
The
SPARK network was set up by Castlefield Gallery in 2022 to facilitate
a Greater Manchester/North West-based network of artists wanting to
intervene in the climate crisis. The gallery initiated SPARK in
response to the high demand for places on the
2021/22 SUSTAIN programme
focussed on low carbon artmaking.
SPARK #30 follows SPARK sessions at Manchester Art Gallery, Rogue, The Birley (Preston), Eccles Friends Meeting House, Manchester Museum, AIR Gallery, Paradise Works, Editional Studio, Cadishead and Little Woolden Moss, Gallery Oldham, the John Rylands Library, Dunham Massey, Lindow Moss and Castlefield Viaduct. At the end of 2023 SPARK held a group exhibition, also called SPARK, and events programme at Rogue Studios.
Castlefield
Gallery continues to provide admin and co-ordination support via
its Artist Environmental Lead, Jane Lawson.
https://www.instagram.com/sparkartistsnetwork/
Image: Culture Declares Emergency swallow by Extinction Rebellion
Location
Manchester Museum (top floor), M13 9PL