‘ONE’ Series - Interview 4.

Winner of the Round Lemon Award 2021, Sculptor Fiona Campbell uses intuitive processes with discarded materials to create assemblages of organised chaos. Campbell’s organic process of making and attentive eye for line and form captivated the Round Lemon team, and here she talks to us more about her making process and influences.

*‘Glut’ (detail), recycled and found materials. Photo by John Taylor.*

Are there any specific moments in your life that have an impact on your practice?

My childhood spent in Kenya has had a massive influence on my approach to materials and subject matter. There, art and life are interwoven. Growing up, I was surrounded by creatures; I used to watch ants. The colours, forms and attitudes have permeated my subconscious. A ‘make and do’ approach rubbed off on me. Using what you have around you.

My practice has taken a wiggly course, with gaps, and milestones. I restarted after several years teaching and bringing up my son. Recently, I needed to challenge my work, so I did an MFA (2018) - this was hugely significant in shifting my practice. At the same time, our beloved boxer dog became epileptic and died. I was working at Hauser & Wirth Somerset, where Our Daily Bread (a film by Nikolaus Geyrhalter) was showing. The wide screen tableau spanned the entire wall of a huge darkened gallery space, and as an invigilator I had to watch/listen to the sounds of agricultural machinery, pigs squealing, pesticides spraying, cows being slaughtered over and over. Not only did all this impact on my practice but I finally became vegetarian. Meanwhile I was reading a book Planet of Slums (Mike Davis) and watching films about our plastic oceans, (Blue Planet, Plastic Ocean..). Footage by Chris Jordan showed albatross chicks dying from bloated stomachs full of plastic in the Pacific gyre.

All this deeply disturbed me and contributed to more meaningful, emotional work, that had more guts. And led to me creating Glut, the piece shown in your ONE exhibition.

*‘Tongue’ Recycled and found materials. Photo by Tchad Findlay.*

You tend to use particular procedures to create tensions between rigid and fragile materials which seem to coexist in a chaotic order. Could you tell us more about the process you use to create your work?

I like that term ‘chaotic order’. There’s the connection with the butterfly effect, entropy… how every small thing affects another.

“Creativity is.. disordered.. seldom tidy”

— Bill Mollison

Chaotic order is like bio-diversity in a forest with numerous species all working together.

The process of collecting materials is intrinsic to my work. Sometimes works grow organically as I accumulate and refine elements – a sort of ‘organised chaos’. Steel, copper and found wood contrast with colourful, sinuous melted glass rods, plastic, and torn paper. The correlation of materials and reclaimed aspect relates partly to the issue of waste – utilising and recycling. I want to give ‘dead’/unwanted objects a new future and value through a process of transformation.

I have a strong affinity with line. I see it as a metaphor for energy. When I draw, I use a range of thick, thin, hard, soft lines all of which describe the very being of something (in my head or from observation). There is always that relationship between fragile/light and heavy/strong in tone, weight, matter, meaning. I translate these qualities into materials when I’m making. There needs to be dynamic tension and contrast for it to play, work together.

So I use hard materials like steel, copper and lead, which I weld, solder and melt, combined with gentler more therapeutic processes and soft materials - textiles, paper, wax… The processes of wrapping, weaving, binding and stitching are all using line to connect, entangle, forms of suturing, healing through making. Material as message. I work quite intuitively. I do research and design, but in the end, the actual making happens organically.

Your piece Glut, 2018 brings comments on our consumerist culture and the harmful effect it has on our planet. Has your work always been a response to our relationship with nature and climate change?

Not quite in the same way as now. I’ve always been passionate about art and nature. And I often return to previous concerns that manifest in different ways. Previously I was making work inspired by nature, still using recycled, found and discarded materials, but perhaps not such strong statements. In my 20s I was making work around human and natural forms, referring to metamorphosis. I have always been interested in the interconnections throughout nature, and line as a vital force.

More recently the response to climate breakdown has grown much more dominant in my work.

*‘Glut’ (detail), RSS. Photo by Jennifer Moyes.*

Would you describe your artist practice as sustainable?

I try to be sustainable. I use discarded, unwanted, recycled and found materials and objects (including metal, plastic, wood, plant fibres, paper, wax, textiles..), and avoid toxic substances (eg cement). Some of the processes are not without their carbon footprint, and I drive around to collect things, but I reuse as much as possible, including parts of older works, which get absorbed into new pieces. Occasionally I use wallpaper paste or pva glue. I try to dye all my donated fabric with natural home-made dyes like oak gall ink, avocado pits and onion skins. I keep buying stuff to a minimum, especially from large outlets like Amazon (more recently). It’s also a good solution to the problem of having a low income, and a way I can sustain my practice!

Do you think contemporary artists have the responsibility to address urgent issues that humanity faces?

I wouldn’t wish to suggest what other artists should or shouldn’t speak about. Some artists prefer to keep their art distinct from their political/environmental affiliations. Others use community projects to help spread the message. Artists make work about the whole experience of humanity. However, I don’t think you can avoid being political as almost everything is political. I do think more artists seem to be focusing on urgent issues in this time of anxiety.

The arts have a tradition of sparking cultural change, disrupting the status quo and creating space for new ideas. There have been some big statements in the past that show art can effect change (eg: Agnes Dennis’s environmental installation. Wheatfield.. 1982). Olafur Eliasson (re Ice Watch London) said ‘in order to create the massive behavioural change needed we have to emotionalise that data, make it physically tangible.’

Art may not be the panacea, but the more awareness, the greater pressure for action, support, change. So much of that can come from art… to create the feeling of consistent, perturbing urgency. I would like to see more artists making powerful statements and joining organisations like Culture Declares Emergency, Extinction Rebellion (amazing how strong it has grown in 2 years), Red Line Art Works... Art about climate change until recently wasn’t cool. But it’s no longer in the scientific domain - and now more political, emotional and urgent.

*‘Accretion’ (detail), Photo by John Taylor.*

Could you tell us more about your work Accretion, 2018?

Accretion is an abject object with layers (real and conceptual) and segments that could continue. It’s an intestinal form, a metaphor for waste, excess and recycling. The intestine is an incredibly long, fascinating fleshy organ.. it has so many microbes in it living and doing essential work. Accretion has connotations of other tentacular forms, similar in structure.. I’m interested in tentacularity. I love this quote from Donna Haraway:

“‘The tentacular are... fingery beings like humans... squid, jellyfish, neural extravaganzas, fibrous entities, flagellated beings... swelling roots... The tentacular are also nets and networks... Tentacularity is about life lived along lines ... a series of interlaced trails.’”

— Donna Haraway

I collected materials from what was available and made it as long as I could in the time I had. It’s made of recycled and found foam, sponge, twine, copper wire, fabric, leather, wool, plastic, sisal, hair, coir, dust, beads, plant fibres, feathers, paper, glue, oil, pigment, steel. Propped on a steel structure, it’s like hair that’s been pulled out of a plughole - a little disgusting, depleted but menacing.

*‘Accretion’ (detail), recycled materials.*

Looking at your work, I can feel a sense of abjection, especially in Accretion (2018), Glut (2018) and Tongue (2019). Was that your initial intention?

Yes, as with Glut and Accretion, Tongue is supposed to be abject but intriguing. Tongue was created as part of Offenders, a residency and solo exhibition I held in Victorian Cells, Town Hall Arts, Trowbridge, in 2019, later shown in B-Wing, Shepton Mallet prison. It posed a question ‘are we all offenders given the state of our world?’ It’s about flesh, organ, waste, body, violence. A big wounded body activated the space, along with other installations throughout the cells. It has several layers of fabric and wax, reflecting on uncomfortable truths about the climate crisis.

And to wrap this interview up, is there anything coming up that you would like to mention? Any future projects or shows?

I’m part of an artist-led travelling art project Inch by IN:CH. We are bringing contemporary art out of the gallery and into community spaces across South West UK. We will transport our work in travel cases from one place to the next - plotted as an outwardly mobile spiral - a metaphor for the migration of ideas, connections and hope. Inch by IN:CH starts at Fringe Arts Bath (28 May) and ends at The Gauge Museum during Somerset Open Studios (3 October).

My piece (in progress) has several disparate parts which I’m bringing together slowly. An antique metal (military) trunk is the basis from which vertical forms will extend, when opened. From containment, constriction, to regeneration. Rising up beyond the grid: branching forms, umbrella structures, hand stitched patches of textiles and plastic. The yellow fabric offers a lightness, vibrancy, optimism.

I’ve got a residency coming up at Heritage Courtyard Gallery loft space, Wells, Somerset in August and September, which will be open during Somerset Open Studios (18 Sept-3 Oct). And ongoing exhibitions:

In Pursuit of Spring, Black Swan Arts, Frome (until 27 June), in which I’m showing my lockdown film Life in the Undergrowth. The work is a filmed diary, inspired by hidden worlds in my garden. It began in early spring 2020. Appreciating, observing, communing with small creatures seemed vital. I witnessed transformation, life and death, strange incidents… The film reflects my love of nature, changing seasons, how alive the air with bird sounds when we are quiet.

And Somerset Reacquainted, touring to Ace Arts, Somerton (26 June-31 July), from Somerset Rural Life Museum.

How can people get in touch with you?

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Resources:

Donna Harraway Text: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/75/67125/tentacular-thinking-anthropocene-capitalocene-chthulucene/