We are … / The Encampment of Eternal Hope

I created two guided meditations for Walker and Bromwich’s project The Encampment of Eternal Hope.

About this work, the artists write:

Encampment of Eternal Hope was first staged at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. Operating both a sculptural installation and a live site for events, talks, film-works and festivities in the run into the end date of the Mayan Long Count Calendar in Dec 2012. The project examined increasing current environmental and societal challenges while prefiguring new models for a post-apocalyptic society.

In 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic the project was recommissioned by the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh in the lead up to COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow. Participants were able to come together outdoors to take part in a wide range of activities which aimed to consider our relationship to the natural world while finding hope and resilience in the terrifying face of the climate emergency.

The Encampment operates as a field laboratory for cross-disciplinary collaboration, it unites experts in diverse fields including ecology, economics, and the arts. The talks and performances programmed with these leading practitioners aims to respond both to the immediate environment the work inhabits, and to reflect upon a wider global context.

As a nomadic settlement the Encampment grows organically and is reconfigured in response to each specific use. The structures connect directly to the collective associations of encampments as temporal sites of protest, revolution, displacement, and social change. The project aims to investigate the potential of a sculptural installation to create an alternative environment that can engender debate and assesses the extent to which an artwork can become an active agent within a contemporary society.

The first, We Are Earth, was performed at the Edinburgh Royal Botanical Gardens on 3 July 2021. Through attention to our breath and our sensory capacities, the session explored what connects us to all other beings in this planet. I introduced the key concepts of intention, attention and attitude and lead two short practices attuning us to our immediate surroundings.

The second, We are Air, was performed as part of COP26 events at the Briggait in Glasgow on 8 November 2021. This session explored what connects us to the air that touches us. I explored how intention, attention and attitude might be useful to think of the climate emergency.