Ecologies of care: Rethinking Wetlands

Ecologies of Care: Rethinking Wetlands
R&D project, MA Curating Contemporary Art 2023

LOCATION
ROLE
RESEARCH SUPERVISOR

Royal College of Art, Walthamstow Wetlands
Curator and researcher
Laura Vallés-Vílchez

Ecologies of Care was a research and development project proposing a visionary installation in Walthamstow Wetlands for situated learning, transdisciplinary exchange and rethinking our relationship towards natural ecologies. Developed through collaborative inquiry with the ecologies of Walthamstow Wetlands, the project explored how curatorial practice might cultivate more reciprocal relationships between humans and the environments they inhabit, challenging dualistic frameworks that position humans as separate from, and superior to, the natural world. It proposed care as an ecological, collective and situated practice.

The proposal outlined a four-day transdisciplinary programme of workshops, performances, discussions, collective listening and site responsive research, culminating in the co-design of an experimental laboratory within the wetlands as a space for learning, exchange and ecological coexistence.
Proposed activities included performance and moving image works exploring bodily relationships and folk histories embedded in wetland environments, collective building, storytelling, sonic walks and research based workshops engaging with the wetlands' water inhabitants.

The accompanying research paper situated the project within theoretical frameworks of care, curatorial practice, and situated learning, drawing on post-feminist and Anthropocene thinking and discourse. It proposed the creation of fluid spaces that prioritise knowledge exchange, experimentation, and more ethical ways of relating across ecologies.

Research paper: Hill_Miranda_Ecologies of Care_Rethinking Wetlands.pdf

Image credits

IMAGE 1 A bird's eye view of Walthamstow Wetlands © Witherford Watson Mann Architects