Category Archives: Sucrose Series

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Memory Palace of Trees – an overview

 

Web of fabulous grass, sucrose series, Niamh Cunningham 2018 

Memory Palace of Trees:

In October 2019  after reading the Pulitzer prize winning book ‘The OverStory’ by Richard Powers I started my plans for the socio-eco art practice ‘The Memory Palace of Trees’. It began in January 2020 at a time when the pandemic was just about to reveal itself as the most urgent global emergency of our lifetime. The pandemic is very much part of our ecological crisis and how we ‘utilize’ the natural world.  Throughout a most turbulent year, people worldwide have reappraised their relationship and dependance on the natural world. Many have turned to nature to claim a space of sanctity and sanity and some people have shared their stories with us in the Memory Palace of Trees.  

Gingko Palace  Sucrose Series 83 x 120 cm print on Aluminium  Niamh Cunningham 2020 (week 15)

Most of these are personal stories.  Submissions came from a range of different people in the US, Europe, Australia and Asia including a children’s writer, poets, dendrologists, artists, a dancer, a forester, an ant forest app user, photographers, academics and more

Ginkgo Palace UV print on Aluminium 80 x 120 cm  Niamh Cunningham  2020 

…..many of these stories inspired the makings of new artworks .

 

Here is a one minute video clip of the artwork for the November tree story . 

Ladybird of DongXiaokou (6 min 40 secs) video Niamh Cunningham 2020   Dancer: Zhang Yi , Music Credit: Ciorras 

 

I want to say a huge THANK YOU to ALL contributors and I will be in contact soon to thank each of you properly. Your stories will act as important stations (or installations) in the Memory Palace of Trees and will be a part of larger future artworks

 

 

 

The Second Beech  Niamh Cunningham 倪芙瑞莲2020 (week 17 of the Memory Palace of Trees)

Ice Willow , Sucrose 8.7.2020 Print on Aluminium , Niamh Cunningham -Kosimas Willow Story 

 

 

 

Chestnut – Park Tree Sucrose Series original Sucrose 50 x 50 cm  Niamh Cunningham 2020 (week 12)

 

 

 

What is a memory palace?

This is a map of a physical space with ‘stations’ containing information you want to remember, these stations are arranged in a linear journey . Here is a link to a  blog from last year  : Journey Image and Space the Memory palace workshops.

 

Open Call for your tree story on video 

Memory Palace of Trees will continue in 2021. This year the submissions will be in video format. If you have a story you can tell in less than a minute (less than 60 seconds), please  find your favorite tree sit under it and video yourself  on your phone telling the story. I can help with the editing and add the English or Chinese subtitles.  Please ensure the sound quality of your recording is clear.  If you are in Beijing I can come and video you if you wish. Please ask if you have any questions about this. 

Looking forward to hearing from you.  Please email me at niamh@niamhcunningham.com

 

 

Jinan Tree Song  Sucrose Series, print on aluminium 158 x 120cm  Niamh Cunningham 2020
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Resilience Thinking – building a safe living space for humanity

 

TreeSong Jinan,  sucrose Series,  (3.7.3.b) Niamh Cunningham 瑞连 2020

Resilience is the capacity to be able to deal with change, to live with change, to make use of change , not just incremental change but also sudden shocks and crises and develop the ability to turn those crises into opportunities.

When we acknowledge we are in the driving seat of change and defining the conditions for world development, this profoundly shifts our potential in terms of our social well being , development and economic growth. And so we are able to look at the Anthropocene directly in the eye and deal with it in a more manageable way.

Having completed the Planetary Boundaries on line course presented by the SDG academy (all of the lecturers are from the Resilience Centre in Stockholm.) I wanted to mull over some of the things I have been thinking about.

The nine boundaries begin with the three main large scale processes : climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and ocean acidification. Slow variables are biodiversity loss, interference with nitrogen and phosphorous cycles, changes in land use and fresh water use. The last two are heavily human induced chemical pollution and aerosol loading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I discovered more about positive and negative feedbacks , regime changes , tipping points and to a more limited extent the interactions between boundaries.The main presenter Johan Rockström raises the chilling concept of the Quadruple Squeeze . These include Affluence and Population, the second is Climate Change crisis , the third is the Loss of our Ecosystems ability to buffer the changes (such as carbon buffers in seas) and the fourth is Surprise leading to tipping points where there is an ‘abrupt knock out’ after a period of resilience.

 

There is no doubt that we are facing the largest and fastest transformation in the history of humanity . We are the first generation to witness the changes directly and the last generation to have the capacity to exert meaningful change to these biospherical processes. 

 

Even though delivery of the talks are brief and persuasive it makes it easier to absorb the weight of the content.  One of the lecturers Gary Peterson whom I view as an eco philosopher spoke on resilience thinking. He explained the use of optimisation can only be used when the variables are known and when things are under control.

Resilience Thinking , Niamh Cunningham 2020

 

In order to act collectively there needs to be shared ability and shared trust. We need social, technical and institutional ways to enable new understandings which cope with uncertainty and the evolution of new things. Ways in supporting the Biosphere underpins our wealth and our wellbeing

However simply increasing resilience is not the issue, we also need to consider where resilience is harmful. Understanding circumstances when  increasing resilience in one thing can decrease resilience in something else. We need to understand what creates , destroys and trades off these things and also not focus simply on increasing resilience but what kind of resilience do we want to increase. For example the fossil fuel economy is amazingly resilient, we need to reflect how can we undermine the resilience of these things? 

 

 

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The course can be taken free of charge on EdX  platform

https://www.edx.org/

 

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Week 6 On the Stroll to Work- Vilma’s Story

简体中文

I hope you are all keeping well out there , washing your hands and keeping safe . Special wishes go out to all the people in Wuhan. 

This weeks story comes from an old friend Vilma B. Thank You Vilma 

 

Leafy with Love (Nanhu nanlu ) photo 10.02.18 sucrose on cotton, thread, Niamh Cunningham 倪芙瑞莲 2018

‘I grew up in a neighborhood on the east side of Caracas, Venezuela. There used to be some mango trees and others , the names of which I don’t remember right now. There was a wide stretch of avenue where I used to walk to and from work. Nearby there was a park with a sports field lined very tall eucalyptus trees. I remember sometimes closing my eyes smelling the pleasant fragrance of these trees. I loved it. It made me feel good.’

Vilma B Feb 2020

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