Serpentine Podcast

What are earth, land, soil, ground and dirt? Join us in that place which is simultaneously ground, land, soil and Earth, that is to say, where diverse species come together, collaborate, communicate and constitute one another but also where complex systems of redistribution of toxicity, logics of extraction and geopolitics meet.

This episode is a collaboration between Future Ecologies and Serpentine Podcast, developed in response to Serpentine’s General Ecology event, The Understory of the Understory, which brought together practitioners from many disciplines to consider the ground beneath our feet across ecologies, politics and spiritualities. 

Invited to respond to the interventions presented over two days in December 2020, Future Ecologies have “composted” The Understory into a choral, poetic essay. 

Day 1: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLrFzV6gBibe24y5EIg2vSQVRg9Ia2Hdr 

Day 2: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLrFzV6gBibejZdlR6fIdLP1rdB0xiZWK 

General Ecology is the Serpentine’s long-term, cross-organisational, multi-disciplinary and cross-media project dedicated to embedding ecological principles and commitments throughout the Galleries’ programmes, networks and infrastructure. 

Future Ecologies is a podcast about relationships: between, within, amongst, and all around us. Made for audiophiles and nature lovers alike, every episode is an invitation to see the world in a new light – set to original music & immersive soundscapes, and weaving together interviews with expert knowledge holders.

Hosts: Mendel Skulski and Adam Huggins

Produced by: Future Ecologies

Sound credits: Thanks to all participants of the event for their contributions and to Cat Can Do, Scott Gailey, Hotspring, Yu Su, Barren House, Kanahuaxtli, You’re Me, Hidden Sky, Greenplant, YaYa Bones, and Sunfish Moon Light for sounds throughout the episode. 

The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish is curated by Lucia Pietroiusti (Curator, General Ecology, Serpentine Galleries) Filipa Ramos, writer, animal whisperer with Kostas Stasinopoulos (Assistant Curator, Live Programmes, Serpentine Galleries). Produced by Holly Shuttleworth (Producer, Serpentine Galleries) and Visual Identity by Giles Round.

“Instead, let’s consider the dandelion achene.

The flower kingdom’s lil grey-haired punk.” 

(Sophia Al-Maria)

Released on the Winter Equinox, 21 December 2020, tarax'sup? is a short meditative exercise inspired by the common dandelion (taraxacum officinale) written and performed by Sophia Al-Maria, with a musical score by Kelsey Lu and cover artwork by Tosh Basco (boychild).

tarax’sup? is a gift from them to you, and especially for queer kin everywhere. 

It can be practiced as often as needed and kept as a companion to listen to or read whenever you are in need of grounding. 

Recorded by Thibault Verdron in Arles, France with special thanks to LUMA Foundation.

Mastered by Heba Kadry. 

tarax’sup? is dedicated to the memory of Rainbow, canine companion of artist Precious Okoyomon.

Curated and produced by Tamar Clarke-Brown, Eva Jäger, Melissa Blanchflower and Kay Watson. 

tarax’sup? is a collaboration between Sophia Al-Maria, Tosh Basco, Kelsey Lu and many more to come. It is a moment of first seeding, a prelude to Sophia Al-Maria’s ongoing project with Serpentine, Taraxos, which ruminates on the dandelion to explore the seeding of new ideas, kinship, breathwork and abolitionist thinking. 

"In the Wobble"
On the occasion of the General Ecology festival, The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish: The Understory of the Understory, Serpentine Podcast hosts the three-part series, "On Fire" from Future Ecologies: a story of burning, first released in 2018. Sign up to The Understory of the Understory at https://bit.ly/FishyGround.

Another year, another fire season. We’ve already had a lot to say about wildfire, forest science, traditional ecological knowledge, and prescribed burning, but we’re not done yet! In this episode, we tour the Province of BC (and dip down into Washington State) to meet vigilante fire fighters, researchers, and First Nations Chiefs: all working in their communities towards a future of true wildfire resilience. With Adam Huggins and Mendel Skulski (Future Ecologies), Clint Lambert, Chief Maureen Chapman, Dr. Lori Daniels, Dr. Sonja Leverkus, Dr. Paul Hessburg, Chief Francis Johnson.

Find out more about Future Ecologies and subscribe at https://www.futureecologies.net/. Transcript at https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-2-2-on-fire-pt-3#transcript. Image by Mendel Skulski.  

#FutureEcologies #GeneralEcology #SerpentinePodcast @Futureecologies @SerpentineUK

“Combustible Communities”
On the occasion of the General Ecology festival, The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish: The Understory of the Understory, Serpentine Podcast hosts the three-part series, "On Fire" from Future Ecologies: A story of burning, first released in 2018. Sign up to The Understory of the Understory at https://bit.ly/FishyGround.

In this second part of this multi-episode series, On Fire, Adam Huggins and Mendel Skulski look at ways to move our civilisation forward – without continuing to deny the role of fire in our landscapes. They discuss how prescribed burns are currently conducted, radical new (and old) perspectives on land management policy, and practical techniques for everyone in fire country to protect their homes, their communities, and their forests. With guests Bill Tripp and Erik Ohlsen.

Find out more about Future Ecologies and subscribe at https://www.futureecologies.net/. Transcript at https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-6-on-fire-pt-2#transcript. Image by Ken Meinhart.  

#FutureEcologies #GeneralEcology #SerpentinePodcast @Futureecologies @SerpentineUK

“Camas, Cores, and Spores”
On the occasion of the General Ecology festival, The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish: The Understory of the Understory, Serpentine Podcast hosts the three-part series, "On Fire" from Future Ecologies: A story of burning, first released in 2018. Sign up to The Understory of the Understory at https://bit.ly/FishyGround.

The past years have been the worst fire years on record across the west coast of North America, with whole communities being engulfed in flames and smoke enveloping major cities for weeks. But as the airways fill once again with stories of valiant fire-fighters and people who’ve lost their homes, we answer some burning questions that seem to always fly under the radar. For example: How long have fires been burning on this planet? Have our ecologies always been adapted to fire? What role did indigenous peoples play in lighting fires in the past? And how can we return prescribed burns to sensitive ecosystems? To answer these questions, Adam Huggins and Mendel Skulski talk to regional experts, including internationally renowned ethnobotanist Dr. Nancy Turner, in this first part of the series, On Fire.

Find out more about Future Ecologies and subscribe at https://www.futureecologies.net/. Transcript at https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-5-on-fire-pt-1#transcript. Image by Matt Howard.  

#FutureEcologies #GeneralEcology #SerpentinePodcast @Futureecologies @SerpentineUK

Back to Earth: Can I Get Back To You? The concluding episode of this podcast season examines the past, present and future of the Back to Earth project, which invites artists to respond to climate emergency. How do you see Back to Earth contributing to environmental work? Is Back to Earth trying to change minds or hearts? When you are lost, or need inspiration, who or what do you turn to? How does the future affect your thinking around environmental damage and remediation? Where are we now and where could we be going?

Featuring work by Himali Singh Soin and Dario Villanueva, and a poem by Bhanu Kapil, written for Back to Earth, Instruction for mixed groups of artists, poets, activists and all those working for climate justice in the coming time, read by Kapil. 

Presented by Victoria Sin and Lucia Pietroiusti, and featuring Hans Ulrich Obrist, Rebecca Lewin and Kostas Stasinopoulos. Produced by Jack Howson for Reduced Listening and Holly Shuttleworth, Serpentine Galleries. 

Back to Earth is supported by Fiorucci Art Trust, Nicoletta Fiorucci Russo De Li Galli and Outset Contemporary Art Fund.

What is queer ecology? How do queer theory and artistic practice inform environmental activism and climate justice? How can we think decolonisation and queerness together?

Victoria Sin welcomes guest host Serpentine Assistant Curator, Kostas Stasinopoulos to dive into transformation, queerness, the natural and unnatural, wild, decolonial and submerged perspectives. Together with guests Ama Josephine Budge, Macarena Gómez-Barris and Jack Halberstam they ask: “where does wildness live?” and they collectively explore questions of desire, pleasure, queer resistance and affinity within apocalyptic world making.

Back to Earth is supported by Outset Partners’ Grant.

This episode was produced by Katie Callin at Reduced Listening.

Indigenous rights, care of biodiversity, and ecological, multispecies worldviews are inextricably connected. Today’s episode features perspectives from self-organised Indigenous organisations at the front line of extraction and climate change, as well as artists researching our more-than-human entanglements. Released on the occasion of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People, Standing with the Forest supports and platforms campaigns at the intersection of Indigenous activism and ecology. 

Produced in collaboration with Flourishing Diversity. The episode features members from APIB, the Brazil’s Indigenous People Articulation: Tiago Amarral, Carolina Schneider Comandulli and Kerexu Yxapyry.; AMAAIAC members Poã Katukina, Yaká Shawãdawa, Pya ko and Busã Huni Kuin (Association of Indigenous Agroforestry Agents from the State of Acre); Chief Raoni Metukitre; Flourishing Diversity co-Founders Jerome Lewis and Jessica Sweidan, artists Maria Thereza Alves and Elaine Gan plus podcast hosts Victoria Sin and Lucia Pietroiusti. 

Support the work of APIB: http://apib.info/apoie/?lang=en

Image Credit: To See The Forest Standing, still, 2017, Maria Thereza Alves.

Back to Earth is supported by Outset Partners’ Grant.

This episode was produced by Katie Callin at Reduced Listening.

How are artists using technologies to imagine alternate realities, new alien languages and manipulate time? How can artists make the invisible visible? Systems and Sprouts is a new episode with host Victoria Sin and guest host Victoria Ivanova, who works with the Arts Technologies team at the Serpentine on creative research and development. Together they explore the ways technology is being used as a connector to things we don’t usually perceive, from extinct species and ancient landscapes to space bacteria and the manipulation of time itself. Interviews include Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Yasaman Sheri and sound works by Jenna Sutela. 

Systems and Sprouts focuses on artists’ relationship to technology and future thinking as part of a larger ecosystem that is building technologies of the future. You can gain more insight into the world of a new generation of artists and organisations working directly with art and advanced technologies by reading Future Art Ecosystems: Art x Advanced Technologies. https://futureartecosystems.org/

Image credit: Jenna Sutela, I Magma App, 2019. Co-commissioned by Moderna Museet and Serpentine Galleries, 2019. 

Back to Earth is supported by Outset Partners’ Grant.

This episode was produced by Katie Callin at Reduced Listening.