Living Coast Residency 2022
commissioned by Fabrica, ONCA and The Living Coast (Brighton and Lewes Downs UNESCO Biosphere)
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Output included Spoolers, a web app which allows you to play with the speed, forward and rewind of a photo-animation, either by swiping a touch screen or walking towards and away from a projected animation, adding back in the some of the sensory engagement with nature we feel while walking through it.
App Dev: Neil Manuell. Best on a touch screen
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As resident for The Living Coast, Rachel went looking for "shimmer," the natural phenomena that catch our eye and hold our attention, a shorthand for intangible ways biodiverse environments act on our physical and mental health.
She walked with local land guardians who work with their communities to defend nearby wild, mapping what3words /// locations to these conversations. Waterhall: wilding a former golf course
Do biodiverse landscapes give of more of a shimmer? Could the shimmer index of a site be a shorthand for its health-giving properties? "You never feel alone out here." Kim Greaves, Friends of Waterhall ///drums.bliss.shadow
anthill.Rockrose.Cistus Forester.chalk grassland seedbank Coldean Community Organisation:
defending ancient chalk grassland "It's your own small landscape that you can actually enact change on. I think microcosm is the right word to describe the shimmer and that touches an emotional place that not many things do." Lawrence Leather, climate activist and chalk grassland restorer ///latest.earth.wisely
raw.nature.being.awesome Benfield Valley Project:
green equigenic infrastructure for Brighton and Hove Helen Forester from Benfield Valley Project tells me its hard to put across the value of a green space in terms of its health giving qualities, despite research that quantifies the levelling effect easy access to green space has on income based health disparity. "Society's understanding of mental health issues locates the problem inside the person - and ignores the politics of their distress...If we were a plant who was wilting, we would look to its conditions..." Dr Sanah Ahsan, clinical psychologist ///ramp.lush.areas safe island.little paths off.blackbirds in conversation ///eager.wonderfully.daily trees all the way to the sea.grasses headbanging at a concert.strawberry moon rising Heartfelt thanks to Polly Eason, Coldean Community Organisation, Helen Forester, Benfield Valley Project and Kim Greaves, Friends of Waterhall.
Full text and video works published as an Insta takeover for Fabrica
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