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Bow Skills workshop: interrogating eco-literacy and what meaningful ecological artistic practices could look like with Youngsook Choi
Wednesday 25th September 2024 , 6:00pm to 8:00pm
How can eco-literacy and ecological grief be used to resist patterns of planetary extraction through our artwork? What is the role of meaningful ecological artistic practice in challenging how we consume, experience, and engage with art? Join artist and researcher Youngsook Choi in a reflective session diving into these questions and their implications for our practices and the wider arts ecosystem.
Building on her existing research and experimental practice into ecological grief, we will map out how we can develop ideas of eco-literacy within our own artistic practices and the impact this has on the artwork we are creating. We will take this collective map further into reimagining art spaces and institutions, from the circulating domain of money-worth collections to the shapeshifting ground of life-affirming relations.
Prolific ecological artistic practices today mainly focus on material experimentation, but where do we go from here? How can we push this further to develop real meaningful ecological artistic practices that create genuine systems change? These are the questions rooting for the second part of the workshop as we challenge the way we stage, consume, and experience art and dream up what living art spaces that we build together could look like.
This is an interactive and collaborative workshop with plenty of time for conversation and discussion, as well as more hands-on mapping and group exercises.
In this workshop, you will:
- Learn about Youngsook Choi’s practice into ecological grief, eco-literacy, and the implications for artists with ecological artistic practices
- Identify how we can develop more meaningful ecological and eco-bound artistic practices
- Speculate how artists can build greater solidarity and leverage this to challenge existing systems of extraction
- Connect with other artists and practitioners with similar areas of interest
The workshop is open to anyone to attend but will particularly resonate with those who have an existing eco-bound practice or an interest in exploring ecologies, climate, and worldbuilding through their artwork or practice.
This event will be held in our indoor courtyard room at Bow Arts Trust, 183 Bow Road, London, E3 2SJ.
Concession rate applies to students, over 65s, under 18s, Bow Arts artists, National Art Pass members, and key workers
More about Youngsook Choi
Youngsook Choi is an artist/researcher with a PhD in human geography. Under the umbrella theme of political spirituality, her performances and multi-faceted installations explore intimate aesthetics of solidarity actions and collective healing. More recently, grief has been the focus of Youngsook’s research-art symbiotic practice, posing collective grief as the process of socio-political autopsy upon certain types of death and environmental destruction. Not This Future (2020), commemorating the Essex 39 incident rooted in Formosa Disaster; Book of Loss (2022), intervention performance grieving seven lost glaciers; In Every Bite of the Emperor (2021-ongoing), the transnational weaving of neo-colonial narratives around damaged ecosystems and broken communities are in tandem with this inquiry. Youngsook is the co-founder of the research-practice working group Decolonising Botany, and the founder of the transnational eco-grief council Foreshadowing.
Youngsook’s works have been supported internationally. Amongst them are Arts Catalyst, Asia-Art-Activism, Barbican Centre, Camden Arts Centre, Coventry Biennial 2021, Estuary Festival, FACT Liverpool, Flat Time House, GOSH Arts, Heart of Glass, Liverpool Biennial 2021, Milton Keynes Arts Centre, Nottingham Contemporary, S1 Artspace, Up Projects in the UK; ARKO Art Center, Sempio Space, Seoul Museum of Art in Korea; Documenta 15, Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz in Germany; Gerimis in Malaysia; and Nextdoor ARI in Australia.
About Bow Skills
Bow Arts seeks to support creative professionals at all stages of their careers. In 2015 Bow Arts launched Bow Skills in response to an artist survey which showed over 90% of practicing artists find it useful to receive further support outside formal education.
Bow Skills is a dynamic and relevant programme of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) which is informed by an artist steering group and open to all creative practitioners across London. The programme of talks, panel discussions, new skills labs and peer crits is open to all, with concession rates available to students, over 65s, under 18s, Bow Arts artists and key workers.
Access information
The Bow Arts Trust offices have step-free access throughout from street level, including to the accessible toilet, and is service animal friendly. This venue does not have a hearing loop system. Accessible parking is not available on-site but blue badge parking can be found 500m away on Fairfield Road.
If you have any questions regarding accessibility at this venue or event, would like to make us aware of any access requirements that you have in advance of visiting, or would like this information in an alternate format including Easy Read, please email nunnery@bowarts.com or call 020 8980 7774 (Ext. 3)
Access requirements could include things like providing equipment, services or support (e.g. information in Easy Read, speech to text software, additional 1:1 support), adjusting workshop timings (e.g. more break times), adjustments to the event space (e.g. making sure you have a seat near the entrance) or anything else you can think of!
Transport Information
Opening hours: Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm
Address: Bow Arts Trust, 183 Bow Road, London, E3 2SJ
Nearest station(s): Bow Road (District and Hammersmith and City lines) is a 6-minute walk away, and Bow Church (DLR) is a 3-minute walk away.
Bus: 205, 25, 425, A8, D8, 108, 276, 488 and 8 all service the surrounding area.
Bike: Bicycle parking is located at Bow Church Station. The nearest Santander Cycles docking station is at Bow Church Station.
