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i am recently interested in the intervention of tech to the body

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I was inspired by Arca's distortion of the body, And i wanted to similarly distort a kind of bodily figure by using technology, editing and multiplying and rotating the figures on their axis, i also wanted to communicate the idea of biophilia through a technological medium, i hoped to collage and cut pieces into organic shapes and allude to a bark like texture, i hoped that the image from a far would look like a series of tangled bodily figures but up close natural forms would start to work their way through the piece.

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I am interested in how Emin brought to life her paintings with bronze, i liked the look of industrial materials in the midst of nature

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"Embellished orifices and sexual organs populate Hantehzadeh’s work, transfigured from the corporeal to the otherworldly in an earthy palette that complements their biomorphic and abstract forms."

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Nicola Bealing's mixture of human forms and deep sea nature

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another NAM JUNE PAIK piece combining the idea of machinary and technology with nature and the human experience of nature

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the merging of nature and technology

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https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern/display/aldo-tambellini

tecnological point of view on nature

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Discover the work of Aldo Tambellini, one of the most significant practitioners of expanded media

Tambellini began his career as a sculptor and a painter. In the early 1960s he helped to develop what is now known as expanded media, bringing together photography, television, film, poetry, slide projection and performance.

He would apply black paint onto glass slides or celluloid film and then burn, scratch or pierce circles and spirals onto the surface. Similar circular forms reappear throughout his work, from his early abstract paintings to his manipulated television images. He saw the recurring circles as conveying a sense of rippling cosmic energy. His fascination with black was another consistent trait. He wrote:

Black is actually the beginning of everything.

He linked his use of the colour to the Black Power movement, which he actively supported.

This display attempts to recreate the immersive nature of the multimedia performances Tambellini staged in downtown New York in the 1960s. Many of these took place at the Black Gate Theater, which he co-founded with artist Otto Piene in 1967. The works included here were acquired after Tambellini's Retracing Black, a large-scale installation accompanied by live performances, was shown at Tate Modern in 2012.

The process of conserving and displaying individual works from Retracing Black is the result of ongoing conversations between curators, conservators, photographers and the Aldo Tambellini Art Foundation.

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Aldo Tambellini - Display at Tate Modern | Tate

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Discover the work of Aldo Tambellini, one of the most significant practitioners of expanded media Tambellini began his career as a sculptor and a painter. In the early 1960s he helped to develop what is now known as expanded media, bringing together photography, television, film, poetry, slide projection and performance.

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both the natural world and human life are the same in their impermanence, i became interested in researching ‘Abebuu adekai’, a Ghanaian tradition of personalising coffins to honor a persons life, not only are they carved of natural material, they often mimic things in our natural world- fish lions plants. this seemed to me like not only honouring the dead but also pronouncing, perhaps subconsciously biophilia

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human anatomical forms in public places/and nature

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human anatomical forms in public places/and nature

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Moore's sculpture in Hyde park always reminded me of a giant pelvic bone, something quite human and skeletal, its place amongst nature interested me, as it seems to put a very intimate and covert part of human anatomy in a public place, i'm not sure whether the pelvic bone association was intentional but i was exited by the idea of drawing anatomy and landscape together, publicly to make a statement.

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iris van Herpin's Biophilic 'sculptures'

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iris van Herpin's Biophilic 'sculptures'

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although iris van Herpin is seen as a fashion designer i found her work quite sculptural, she is an artist ho takes inspiration from the natural world and applies it to the human form, commenting on our relationship with nature, i was also drawn to the similarities in movement between plants and humans.

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3.

So far in specialising in fine art I have continued to study Biophilia, the mediums I use have ranged quite broadly,this year I have experimented with lino printing,sculpture and video works, the theme of nature and the body have remained strong themes throughout my work.Often my art is black and white and tends to follow a kind of abstract pattern, whereby I entangle natural forms with human anatomy, my attempt is to create a hybrid form from the two, not only have I enjoyed the sense of ambiguity,in this mono colour scheme.

I have experimented with using nature itself,in some works I attempt to contrast the ‘permanent’perception we have of sculpture by using perishable-natural-materials like plums and branches that will eventually rot and decay.In a group show I looked into the future trajectory of our natural world,I decided to use plastic-waste material to represent our disconnection with it,but also use harsh materials like bleach,that would prove very dangerous to wildlife,much like the use of pesticides or ‘weed killer’.A large part of my practice is digital collage-I am interested in how technology interacts with nature, but also I found editing and repeating an image was an easy way to abstract it.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/style/crop-circles.html

i found the idea of crop circles interesting, how they are believed to belong to 'aliens' or the 'supernatural'- again this idea of an ambiguous body at one with nature or reliant on the land, when in fact many people have come forward and admitted to creating and cultivating these crop circles.

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drag artist's take on environmentalism and the application of Biophilia to the body  

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drag artist's take on environmentalism and the application of Biophilia to the body  

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I was interested in drag artist Pattie-Gonia's application of waste and artificial materials to the body- i thought that this recycled look represented to me the idea of disconnection with nature, and was almost the antithesis of the ghilli -suit

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in some shots the swimmer becomes one with the landscape

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designboom | architecture & design magazine

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'MIGRATIONS' AT THE VENICE ART BIENNALE 2022

Part of 'The Milk of Dreams', the International Art Exhibition of the Venice Art Biennale 2022, Marguerite Humeau's 'Migrations' is a new body of work made from biological and synthetic resin and polymers, salt, algae, seaweed, bone, pigments, mineral dust, ocean plastic, glass, and stainless steel. The installation is composed of three sculptures named after ocean currents: El Niño, La Niña, and Kuroshio. Somewhere between levitating, collapsing, and almost flying away, the three sea creatures of the artist's mythological ecosystem express an understanding of mortality that transcends the domain of humans. 'I thought that maybe because of climate change and mass extinctions, animals are also getting conscious of their own death, and maybe they're developing their own rituals, mythologies, and spirituality,' Humeau tells designboom. 'In the past three years I've developed a series of death rituals and dances, many of them about marine mammals specifically because I do lots of research around their existing rituals,' the French, London-based artist adds. Find out more about 'Migrations' and the work of Marguerite Humeau on our interview below.

all installation views from the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia: Marguerite Humeau, Migrations (El Niño, Kuroshio, La Niña), 2022 | images by Roberto Marossi, courtesy the artist, C L E A R I N G and White Cube

video: Marguerite Humeau, 'Migrations', 2022. video: Jon Lowe Courtesy of White Cube

INTERVIEW WITH Marguerite Humeau
designboom (DB): Can you tell us a few things about the new body of work you are presenting at the Venice Biennale?
Marguerite Humeau (MH): The work is called 'Migrations', and it's composed of three sculptures called 'El Niño', 'La Niña' and 'Kuroshio'. They are named after sea currents. It's actually an extension of a work I did in 2019, which started for my show 'MIST' at C L E A R I N G, Brussels, and then 'High Tide' for the Prix Marcel Duchamp prize. My original speculation was about the origin of humankind, and how a lot of researchers think that we became spiritual when we became conscious of our own death, from an individual point of view, but also as a species. There are a few researchers that think this, and especially one who I really love is Joseph Campbell. He talks about how, for him, this moment in time was the beginning of spirituality and the birth of mythologies. Because the first impulse we humans have had when we realised our own death, as individuals, but also the death or extinction of our species, has been to try to find ways to transcend it.

Kuroshio and La Niña

MH (continued): When you look at many religions around the world, or grand narratives, or mythologies, they're all connected one way or another to the idea of eternal life or questions like, 'where do we go after we die?' or, 'do we get reborn?'. So I thought that maybe because of climate change and mass extinctions, animals are also getting conscious of their own death, and maybe they're developing their own rituals, mythologies, and spirituality. In the past three years I've developed a series of death rituals and dances, many of them about marine mammals specifically because I do lots of research around their existing rituals. Actually one of the inspirations behind the show in Venice comes from a video I saw of a female whale that was carrying a baby that had just died. For many weeks she was carrying it on her head. For this work specifically, I was also thinking about climate change, the rise of the water, and especially in Venice because the water is so overwhelmingly present everywhere; it seems that the city is counting the millimetres until it literally drowns. What do we do when this happens? I guess we're forced to migrate. So I was interested in the idea of migration, as in to be physically forced out of where you live to go somewhere else. But also the migration of the mind, the migration of the soul once you die. I was thinking about a group of marine mammals who are migrating. The show operates on different levels. Maybe this is my most mysterious work, because there are different ways of interpreting it.

El Niño, La Niña, Kuroshio

MH (continued): I don't know if you experienced the same during COVID, but I felt that there was a huge change of paradigm. In previous works I had been more interested in accelerating life to the point it becomes eternal, through technologies or other means. I was interested in accelerating this process to the point when it becomes horrifying. This has totally shifted now, and I'm much more interested in vulnerability, imperfections, and fragility. There is something quite overwhelming about what's happening in the world at the moment. Then, the figure of Atlas came to mind, the Greek titan who's carrying the sphere of the heavens on his back. To be honest, I've felt very much like that in the past two years, like you're almost overwhelmed by your own weight. Thinking about the challenges that we humans have to tackle, especially with climate change. It is very complex to understand how we can act on an individual level, what we should do to have a real impact in the world, and also how to manage those challenges at a collective level.

La Niña

MH (continued): So, I had this image, and then I had the image of the whale carrying the baby, and like that I started to think about bubbles, or big water drops that could be like the bags one might carry on their shoulder when they're migrating, or they could also be crystal balls, or spheres in which you can project your future but also your memories, your past. And when you migrate, what do you take with you? What is it that you want to protect? I was playing around with that and developed the work like this.

I wanted to have one of the beings in this ecosystem, in this group, totally overwhelmed, like Atlas, who's totally overwhelmed by its own weight. I wanted it to seem really fragile, almost a bit sick, one of its 'arms' looks almost like it's broken. I worked really hard on the balance, and I was also thinking that yes, we're on the cusp of falling, but maybe we could also transcend. So the beings look like they're levitating, almost falling, collapsing, but also almost flying. They're all slightly unbalanced, but also kind of moving forward. This was quite new for me, I broke the symmetry of my work that was quite present before. I brought more imperfections, I worked on the balance, and I wanted them to feel really light but very heavy at the same time. The second being is more like it's travelling, carrying something, maybe on their head or on their hands. And the last one is much more hopeful. It's almost like a wave coming out and showing the way. We don't really know where it's heading to, but it's heading somewhere. There's something more hopeful about it.

DB: Why did you name the three sculptures after sea currents?
MH: I named them after sea currents because once I designed them, I was showing the forms to different friends to test them, and it's funny because some of them were like, 'that's not even an animal, that's a plant,' or 'that's a flower'. I got many different responses. I thought that it was so interesting, because it was almost like it was the entire living world that carries Earth in a way. In the end it doesn't matter, they could be plants, they could be flowers, they could be animals, they could be all living things that are on a mission to protect something that they've lost, or that they're about to lose. So I thought about sea currents because they are such strong forces. Also, they encapsulate huge ecosystems. For example, El Niño is quite emblematic of that, as it warms up or shifts, this affects many living things. And as the currents keep changing, they will affect all sorts of living organisms and the ecosystems will be transformed.

Marguerite Humeau, High Tide (The Dancer II, The Dancers III & IV), exhibition view, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2019 | Image by Julia Andréone, courtesy the artist, C L E A R I N G New York/Brussels
DB: Can you tell me more about the materiality of the sculptures?
MH: I started to include organic and mineral materials. I am working with seaweed pigments and mineral dust and bones, that are all encapsulated within the works. I'm also interested in those materials, of course, conceptually speaking. Also, although there is a slight distance in the way the work is presented in the Arsenale, if you look really close, I wanted their skin to almost feel like it has pores and freckles, and like it's really soft as well. I wanted to create a high level of empathy, although we don't really know what these are exactly.

Marguerite Humeau, Waste I - 4, A respiratory tract mutating into industrial waste, exhibition view, Clearing Brussels, 2019 | frigate bird respiratory tract in resin, polyurethane, paint, silicone tubes, CO | 93 x 57 x 33 cm | image by Julia Andréone, courtesy the artist, C L E A R I N G New York/Brussels

MH (continued): I want my materials to be really ambiguous, so you never really know what they are. It's a big question people ask me, and I can tell you the ingredients but it's also about how you apply them and what you do with them. Recently, I've been much more involved personally. For example, for the big blue-ish spheres in the sculptures, I was at my fabricator's workshop in London for the spray painting and sanding, and I also applied different textures on the surfaces. I treated them like watercolors. The sculpture on the left, if you look close enough, looks like there is a storm inside.

Marguerite Humeau, 'Energy Flows', exhibition view, Clearing New York, 2022 | image by JSP Art Photography, courtesy of the artist and C L E A R I N G New York / Brussels
DB: One thing that struck me is the scale. Its monumentality allows you to immerse yourself in it. How do you decide on the scale of your works in general? Do you also produce pieces on a smaller scale?
MH: Actually my last show, 'Energy Flows' at C L E A R I N G New York, was all composed of really small works around plants. I've been working at different scales. I'm working on a teapot at the moment, I'm doing small sculptures, drawings and bigger paintings, and in the last year I've done gardens and microarchitectures. But you're right, these are some of my largest works to date. In sculpture, I always think that scale is so important and means different things. For example, with my show of really small sculptures, I was thinking of them as elixirs, so I really wanted them to feel quite intimate. I was also thinking of them almost as prototypes for new worlds, like architecture models for something much bigger.

Marguerite Humeau, 'Ambedo' (with Jean-Marie Appriou), 2021 | skeleton, lacquer | 58.2 x 59.6 x 36.3 cm | image by julia andréone, courtesy the artist, C L E A R I N G New York/Brussels

MH (continued): Usually, in the tradition of sculpture, one to one scale is human, and for example, one and a half might be a god-like figure. For the works at the Biennale, I didn't start by saying I want them to be monumental. I first designed them, and then I was thinking that I wanted the part that relates to some kind of head to be at the height of a human head, so it feels like we're entering in dialogue with them. I wanted to feel like you can almost discuss with them, but at the same time that they also feel that they are embodying something greater than us.

DB: Can you tell me more about your process?
MH: I start with lots of sketches, I'm talking hundreds of pages. I usually also gather lots of reference images, and then I send them to a 3D designer who I work with. Recently I've changed the way I've been working. Before, I would send him my sketches and he would translate that into a 3D model. Now, I'm sending him sketches, but most importantly, reference images and ask him to replicate some parts. For example, I'll ask him to replicate this organ of a whale, or this bone, or this part of a seaweed. He makes a kind of toolkit, and then he sends it back to me, and I connect them together. I play around with them, I scale them up or down, and then I send it back to him and he connects everything back together. It's a bit of a process. About the scale, I'm usually in my studio measuring myself and things around me to understand how it would feel to be next to them. This time, we made a full model of my space in the Arsenale, including the columns that surround it, so we could try with small characters to see how it would feel like. Of course, once the work has been produced, I'm always surprised. But that's nice as well, because I don't exactly know how things will be in real life so it makes the process really exciting.

Marguerite Humeau, Common Moonwort, 2022 | Pigment and charcoal on paper, frame: sugars, mineral dust, plant-based and synthetic resin, wood |courtesy the artist, C L E A R I N G New York/Brussels
DB: What you're working on at the moment?
MH: I had my show 'Energy Flows' at C L E A R I N G in New York that just ended. I was presenting a sort of garden-cemetery-alchemical place where I was growing sculpture elixirs to find emotions that we've never named, or that we've lost. At the same time, I was showing a series of pastel drawings that I saw as portals into the soil. I've been working with high precision scanning technologies to get images from the soil and understand what are all the micro interactions that happen there and what we can learn from them. And this is an ongoing series, so I'm going to show also some new drawings at Art Basel in Hong Kong. At the same time, I'm showing at the Sydney Biennial. It's a piece that's connected to the work I'm showing here in Venice, which I produced in 2019. It's called 'The Dead' and it's a marine mammal that seems to be floating at the surface of the ocean with its arms open, almost like a cadaver, but

reaching for some form of transcendence at the same time.

Marguerite Humeau, The Dancer V, A marine mammal invoking higher spirits, 2020 | Polystyrene, polyurethane resin, fibreglass, steel skeleton, pollution particles | 220 x 206 x 169 cm | image by Filip Claessens, courtesy the artist and CLEARING New York/Brussels

MH (continued): And my big project is the one I'm doing in Colorado, in the San Luis Valley, with an organisation called Black Cube. We managed to rent one of those huge circles that are used for intensive agriculture in the United States. The site is one kilometer in diameter, and has been unused for a while. We are developing the project at the moment. When we finish, it's going to be the largest earth work ever made by a woman artist, so that's a challenge. It's a massive project and I'm really excited about it because my work is moving even more towards thinking about sculptures as portals, and as agents that can create relationships between different things. I'm not really interested in making objects in themselves, I'm much more interested in creating beings or agents in a group or an ecosystem who connect between each other, like in Venice. I have also been working on an elixir that is served with a specific teapot, again, using sculpture as a means to connect humans together or to activate something within us, or connect us to other times or spaces. All my projects are all mythological ecosystems, that are carefully researched and emerge into our reality, through sculpture or sound, via a clairvoyant like in my show Surface Horizon that took place at Lafayette Anticipations last year, or through gardens, landscapes, via an elixir or a drawing-portal, via voices or all forms of ethereal presences or manifestations.

Marguerite Humeau, Rise, 2021| Aluminium, oil, pigments
5250 x 4573 x 3234 mm | commissioned by Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo | image by Domenico Conte

MH (continued): In Colorado, it's about the relationship between humans and the birds because there are very specific birds that migrate over the sites that are called sandhill cranes. So the connection is between the birds, the water, the rain, and satellites that are specialized in weather forecasts. The intention is to transform the land into a rain making device using physical tools, but also mythologies. I'm really excited about it, because conceptually speaking, it is a great new direction for me: how to work site-specifically, how to create new mythologies that can be active in specific landscapes, drawing from past myths and speculations about the future. I am interested in exploring the idea of humans reintegrating wider ecosystems, synchronising with and transcending through larger life flows. In Colorado, I am imagining that we transform the land into a rain-making device, a collaborative opera at the scale of a landscape, a collaboration between the land, the weeds, sandhill crames, the wind, past and future mythologies, farmers, community members, soil scientists, bird specialists and more.I also started to work with White Cube gallery and I will have my first solo show there in April 2023, and then at C L E A R I N G in Brussels.

Marguerite Humeau, Levitation, 2021 | image by Julia Andréone, courtesy the Artist, C L E A R I N G New York/Brussels

project info:
name: Migrations

artist: Marguerite Humeau | C L E A R I N G New York/Brussels | White Cube

location: Arsenale - the 59th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia

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marguerite humeau on 'migrations', her sculptural sea creatures at the venice art biennale

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interview with marguerite humeau on 'migrations', her new sculptures whcih are part of 'the milk of dreams' at the venice art biennale 2022.

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Symbiotic Machine
In collaboration with scientists from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Ivan Henriques developed a prototype for an autonomous photosynthetic bio-machine which harvests energy from photosynthetic organisms, applying this energy to movement to be able to collect photosynthetic organisms again. This bio-solar machine will create a symbiotic system with the environment where it is located, which detects, collects, carries and processes these organisms autonomously, amplifying the energy obtained from them using a floating mobile robotic structure. These micro organisms can be found in ponds, canals, rivers and the sea, which are a potential source to feed the Symbiotic Machine. The environment where it is located can be cleaned as in the case when harmful algae blooms.

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FMP QUESTIONS- context/references on subject matter

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FMP QUESTIONS- context/references on subject matter

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2.

I wanted to look into Biophilia by comparing the life of a human to that of a plant, specifically our impermanence. I was interested both in the temporary impermanence of nature, for example the dying of leaves and the turning seasons, but also the long-lasting damage of pollution on nature, which has led to irreversible and permanent damage. I wanted to compare this with the human experience, death and impermanence being a fact in plant and human life. I looked into Mendieta’s silhouettes, they seemed to reference death and impermanence directly with the figures almost mimicking a body in a casket whilst also reflecting the impermanence of nature, often we think of sculpture as a solid and permanent fixture, Mendieta’s work has an ephemeral nature, as all her silhouettes have faded from rain dried from the sun or the flower figures have slowly started to droop and decay.I  found that even the faded or hollowed out silhouettes hinted towards an ambiguous body that was somehow at one with nature, A kind of hybrid form, between human and plant.Mendieta’s over 200 silhouettes referenced how she felt… “overwhelmed by the feeling of having been cast from the womb (nature).”I was interested in how she was able to communicate a strong sense of belonging within nature, one that seemed innate/automatic, but also reflect on the natural world as a kind of body itself, able to cultivate life, much like the human body.The comparison of the body and nature continued to direct my research. I studied the works of various artists:Mutu, Brodowicz, Humeau and Goldsworthy ,all of whom either merged human anatomy with natural forms in their work or personified natural landscapes. In the book ‘black stones red pools’ Goldsworthy hides red pools, almost like pools of blood within the landscape creating this idea of nature experiencing trauma, like a person would. Although this work is some of his earliest, it struck me as current and poignant given the state of turmoil our natural world is facing today.

whilst looking for visual references of the body in nature I watched the short film ‘the swimmer’-a black and white film that followed a swimmer’s journey for miles through a river, and finally to a fair ground .In many shots the swimmer disappears into the landscape entirely into the black waters. I found that video was an effective medium in creating a sense of uncanny- the hybrid ‘biophilic’ form, this led me to other video pieces with a similar sense of uncanny- Loie Fuller’s dancing video for example. ‘The swimmer’ and its mono colour scheme proved very influential in my practice,after watching it I became interested in how the black and white colour scheme could be used to cloud both the body and nature- merging them to a kind of abstract ‘whole’, rather than two separate elements brought together, I enjoyed the sense of ambiguity of the form also,I attempted to create images that were hard to decipher and that required patience to visually unpack, as I feel that patience is required to reconnect with nature in contrast to the fast moving pace of modern life. I also found that this colour scheme communicated a sense of loss, much like old black and white footage shows the past and acts as a time portal to something you have never experienced. I wanted to communicate the vast loss brought about by climate change, nature and natural abundance being ‘something of the past’,during this age of extinction.

After studying visual comparisons of nature and the body I was interested in comparisons within literature and poetry, two poets I looked at were Pablo Neruda and walt Whitman. Whitman’s poems seemed to carry a more scientific fascination of biophilia, the obsession with atoms and the shared fabric of humans and plant life.Pablo Neruda Neruda’s ‘two plants’ poem however saw a more human,romantic,connection with nature, personifying, like Goldsworthy, the natural world.

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FMP- introduction on chosen subject matter

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FMP- introduction on chosen subject matter

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1.

The word Biophilia describes an innate and genetically pre-determined affinity humans have with our natural world.I have always been interested in our connections with nature and I have been especially interested in our relationship with nature in a time of climate crisis,I felt that it was important now more than ever to appreciate our natural world and recognise ourselves as a part of it.

As a starting point in my research, I wanted to look at  the different ways in which we forge our connection with nature,I decided to split these into 3 key categories, firstly through a Political/cultural standpoint, an aesthetic standpoint and lastly a technological one.

In my research I wanted to understand more deeply our cultural ties with nature as humans and societies. I was interested in the role of tradition nature had played in different cultures. For example, the symbol of the fig tree in Kenyan tradition, they are believed to house the spirits of ancestors and are often used for religious ceremony, but when one of the oldest and largest fig trees in Kenya came to be threatened by the build of an express way the tree became a symbol of political defiance, with young people across Nairobi protesting its removal.The same sense of heritage and culture can be applied to the totem pole, in indigenous community.The totem pole represents ‘family crests or family/groups history and were often carved from old tree trucks and red cedar.The overlap of nature and identity was something I was interested in reflecting in my practice as I am from a black forest town in Germany where nature plays a huge role in peoples’ familial and personal identity.In some works sometimes using my own body in collages amongst natural forms.

Next, I explored the aesthetic ties between the human form and nature, I found that even the superficial imitations of nature in our own bodies commented on a deeper connection with nature, Biophilia.The physical similarities between the natural world and the body led me to my research in prosthetics, whilst looking at Victorian prosthetics and artificial limbs I observed the very literal application of natural forms to the body, limbs made of wood, a body, very much ‘at one with nature’. From this,I learnt about the progression of prosthetics into more durable and artificial materials like acrylic resin, silicone, and aluminium. I thought that this transformation spoke to a wider shift and our gradual detachment from natural materials in favour of artificial and mass-produced ones.

My research soon turned to biophilia from a technological point of view, through my interest in prosthetics I was drawn to the idea of transhumanism– “the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology.”I wanted to explore how technology can interrupt our  connection with nature, but also change our perception of the body, not as a natural form but a kind of machine, compiled of functions and ‘parts’. I think that nature and technology are often viewed as disparate entities,but I became fascinated by the function of biomimicry , technology enhancing nature.One example that surprised me was Mont Garson’s ‘Plantasia’ album Which used a machine to measure the frequencies released from plants and translated it into sound,another person’s work that inspired me was Tim Knowle’s tree drawings , both of these works seemed to reflect a new kind of consciousness surrounding our connection with nature, using technology to somehow amplify the existence of it.In a recent group exhibition I reflected on the future of humans and the natural world and the role technology will play in either driving us closer or further apart from it,In future works I would like to theorise about what biophilia will look like in the future, by using ‘artificial’ materials and machine like processes to appreciate nature or attempt to relate to it through technology.

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https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/forest-gardens-show-how-native-land-stewardship-can-outdo-nature

stories of human bond to nature- how we can harnnis nature to our benefit, and re-construct it with such accuracy

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aesthetic similarities between nature and technology

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aesthetic similarities between nature and technology

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https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/knot-a-problem-thai-capital-tackles-overhead-street-cables

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Knot a problem: Thai capital tackles overhead street cables

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BANGKOK (AFP) - Bangkok's Wireless Road may soon live up to its name. Read more at straitstimes.com.

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https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/28/knowles.php
technology assisting nature

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The limbs limn

Tim Knowles

The works presented below are part of a wider practice in which I utilize apparatuses, mechanisms, or systems beyond my control to introduce chance into the production of my art. The pieces here are from a series produced by trees, most of which are located in the Borrowdale and Buttermere areas of England's Lake District. I attach artists' sketching pens to their branches and then place sheets of paper in such a way that the trees' natural motions-as well as their moments of stillness-are recorded. Like signatures, each drawing reveals something about the different qualities and characteristics of the various trees as they sway in the breeze: the relaxed, fluid line of an oak; the delicate, tentative touch of a larch; a hawthorn's stiff, slightly neurotic scratches. Process is key to my work, so each Tree Drawing is accompanied by a photograph or video documenting the location and manner of its creation.
If you've enjoyed the free articles that we offer on our site, please consider subscribing to our nonprofit magazine. You get twelve online issues and unlimited access to all our archives.
Tim Knowles is an artist based in London. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions in the UK and abroad, including the Jerwood Drawing Prize and the Hayward Gallery touring exhibition You'll Never Know. In 2007, he completed a series of new works in collaboration with the Royal Mail. He has been commissioned by the Contemporary Art Society and the Economist to produce a new work for the Economist Plaza in February 2008.

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Artist Project / Tree Drawings | Tim Knowles

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'no room for ghosts'- Fernando Palma Rodriguez "Nature has been replaced by the transistor".

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'no room for ghosts'- Fernando Palma Rodriguez "Nature has been replaced by the transistor".

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https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/fernando-palma-rodriguez-30826/fernando-palma-rodr%C3%ADguez theres-no-room-for-ghosts
I became interested in how we use technology to mimic nature, or how everything to some extent, automatically mimics it, even though technology feels very 'man made'- and disperate from nature. I then became interested in the term 'man made'- and our way of detatching ourselves from nature by the language e use. Technically everything comes from natural forms

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Fernando Palma Rodríguez — ‘There’s no room for ghosts’ | Tate

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Originally trained as an engineer, the artworks of Fernando Palma Rodríguez blur the boundaries between nature, technology and art. In the words of the artist, “Nature has been replaced by the transistor”.

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https://ivanhenriques.com/
Machine and plant collaboration- our changing relationship with nature- the machine like quality to plants

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ANICKA YI, IN LOVE WITH THE WORLD, 2021
the tate

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75WFTHpOw8Y
In my publication i wanted to reflect on machine- curiosity ,how we as humans often take technology apart in order to understand it. I was interested in the idea of technology mimicking nature, and the idea of the outer appearence of something vs its inward mechanism, whether this be a computer screen or a flower head.

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technology and humans Park Chan-wook's film i'm a cyborg 

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technology and humans Park Chan-wook's film i'm a cyborg 

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i was interested in the idea of cyborgs and technology- as a symbol from how far we've come from nature, how technology has come to dictate our movement and our interactions with one another, as appose to nature.
I became interested in transhumanism

transhumanism
/tranzˈhjuːmənɪz(ə)m,trɑːnzˈhjuːmənɪz(ə)m/
noun

the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology

and how perhaps we could re-visit our routes with nature through technological advancement.

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Mont Garson's songs made for specific plants 

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Mont Garson's songs made for specific plants 

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This album was made with plants- a machine that analyses the energy from plants and translates it into sound, i was interested in how human technology gives a voice to nature, in a way amplifying it

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dda-BXNvVkQ&t=27s
Loie Fuller (1905) [silent short film] I wanted to explore the body and nature, how we can mimic it, even in movement ,in moments the performer turns into a flower like form, she becomes half obscured but the human form is still present, i wanted to mimic this in between state, of nature merging with the body

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http://alicjabrodowicz.com/
the photography of Brodowicz was also influential, i began to look into how we as humans, superficially have aesthetic similarities with nature and how this could perhaps deepen our relationship with it.

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https://www.theghilliesuits.com/articles/

https://www.theghilliesuits.com/natural-jute-vs-ultralight-synthetic-jute/

I looked into Biomimickry- I was interested in how we mimic nature and why- in the case of ghillie suits, to negatively impact nature and wildlife through hunting- this contradiction, i thought was very reflective of our complicated relationship with nature,From this i became interested in how nature can be fit to the body itself.

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Ramsay's short black & white film 'SWIMMER'

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Ramsay's short black & white film 'SWIMMER'

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT1UCPtrtbI
This short film influenced the black and hite aestetics of my work, But also it reflected a very intimate relationship between a person and a landscape, this is something that i would like to think about in my work

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https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9780674074422?gC=5a105e8b&gclid=Cj0KCQiAi8KfBhCuARIsADp-A57LQz5sJUDLlYYt4_ss6mWDqoxrhIfrPnJQzywJvGctsN4Vb6D5prYaApikEALw_wcB

I read this book about human connections with nature, O.Wilson coined the term Biophilia this term means humans possess an innate tendency to seek connections with nature and other forms of life.

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https://thealternativelimbproject.com/limbs/cuckoo/
The alternative limb project is a company that makes prosphetics -they apply nature to the body in a literal sense, drawing attention to our connection to it

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-55094235
I looked into stories of human connection with nature, and how our relationship with it can become political and tied to culture and history, for example the fig tree's meaning in Kenya

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In our series of letters from African journalists, media and communication trainer Joseph Warungu looks at the power trees seem to have over Kenyan politicians.

Governments are not always known to listen to their people.

If they did, the streets of Uganda's capital, Kampala, would not have been filled with so much violence recently as the strong arm of government rained down blows on its people to silence the voices demanding change amid their electoral season.

In Kenya, people have been pleading with government and politicians to help stop the spread of Covid-19, by abandoning their political rallies aimed at persuading people to endorse a possible constitutional referendum.

If the referendum does go ahead and is approved by the people, it will allow a major change to the constitution, that will restructure power and create more political offices, including a huge increase in the number of elected parliamentarians - all at the expense of the taxpayer.

Politicians in the governing party as well as the opposition, which also backs the referendum, refused to listen, with massive rallies in recent weeks attracting huge crowds, including many people who had abandoned their face masks.

This has been blamed for the worrying Covid-19 situation in Kenya where coronavirus infections have shot up with many more people dying now than in previous months.

So, it came as a big shock to Kenyans when one tree spoke and the government listened.

The Kikuyu do not allow a fig tree to be cut down - they believe such an act could spell disaster"

Joseph Warungu
Media and communication trainer

But it is no ordinary tree.

The majestic fig tree, which is 100 years old and towers over a section of Waiyaki Way in the west of Nairobi, had been sentenced to death to make way for an expressway that is under construction.

The 27km (16-mile) road will link the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to the Westlands area of Nairobi, joining Waiyaki Way, the main road that leads to western Kenya and Uganda.

'Beacon of cultural heritage'

No-one quite knows why exactly the president changed the mind of government and issued a decree to spare the fig tree.

He simply described it as a "beacon of Kenya's cultural and ecological heritage".

Indeed, the tree has huge cultural and religious significance for Bantu-speaking communities.

Some sections of the Luhya community in western Kenya, such as the Maragoli, revere the "mukumu" or fig tree. It was traditionally a courtroom under whose branches, cases would be heard and determined by elders. Fig trees are also used as landmarks in Maragoliland.

Signal to transfer power

For the Kikuyu people of central Kenya, the most populous ethnic group in the country, the fig tree known as "mugumo" has traditionally been a shrine, a place of worship and sacrifices.

The Kikuyu do not allow a fig tree to be cut down - they believe such an act could spell disaster.

When a fig tree withers or falls to the ground naturally, the Kikuyu see it as a bad omen or a signal to transfer power from one traditional age set or generation to the next. Each generation rules for about 30 years.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is himself Kikuyu, may have been the bearer of some bad news for Kenyans in his political life, but I'm not sure he fancied carrying the cultural and spiritual burden of a dead mugumo tree.

While environmentalists campaigned to stop the destruction of the tree, Kikuyu traditionalists watched with bated breath and stood with the tree and against the destruction of their culture.

This is not the first time that a stubborn government has been stopped in its tracks by nature as it attempted to erode the environment.

In the late 1980s the then ruling party - the Kenya African National Union - came up with a grand plan to build a massive skyscraper as its headquarters in the middle of Nairobi's famous Uhuru Park.

At 60 storeys, the Times Media Complex with offices, shopping malls and parking for hundreds of cars, was going to be the tallest building in the East Africa region.

Environmentalists led by the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Prof Wangari Maathai launched a campaign to fight the building and save the park.

In the end, Daniel arap Moi, who was then president, grudgingly listened to the voice of Uhuru Park and its trees.

Without fanfare, the skyscraper was scrapped and today many residents of Nairobi still have a serene green space for family outings and picnics.

'Chinese bewilderment'

The Waiyaki Way fig tree too can breathe easy as it has also been spared.

When I visited the site this week, the workmen had drawn plans for how the trenches they were digging would skirt around it.

One taxi driver told me: "After the president's decree, the Chinese [contractor] came, stared at the tree, stared at the tunnel that was meant to cut through the tree and walked away shaking his head."

The Chinese might have wondered what kind of powerful language the mugumo tree spoke to force engineering to stop, listen and detour.

The Kikuyu word for tree is "muti" and they use the same word for ballot.

The fig tree has won the vote to stay alive and keep the Chinese-funded expressway at bay.

Many Kenyans wish many more trees will stand up and vote "no" to selfish political moves that could endanger lives in a time of coronavirus - and their pockets if the referendum passes.

But will the government listen?

Let's wait for the trees to speak.

More Letters from Africa:

Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica

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Viewpoint: Why Kenya's giant fig tree won over a president

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In our series of letters from African journalists, media and communication trainer Joseph Warungu looks at the power trees seem to have over Kenyan politicians. Governments are not always known to listen to their people.

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https://britishartshow9.co.uk/artists/marguerite-humeau/
I liked how the artist captures a sense of uncanny-between the human form and natural organic shapes and figures

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Marguerite Humeau is intrigued by things that are extinct and in forms that are yet to come. Working with teams of researchers from very diverse disciplines - from palaeontology and behavioural science to engineering, linguistics and many more - her projects mix science, history, myth, animism and bioethics. She has resurrected the sounds of prehistoric creatures and the voice of Cleopatra, and has produced new versions of 150,000-year-old 'Venus' figurines, based on research into trance, ecstatic ritual, and animal morphology. Humeau stresses that though scientific facts are important in her sculptures, installations and drawings, speculation and fiction are essential in the creation of 'strong physical, almost supernatural experiences.'

Marguerite‌ ‌Humeau‌ ‌(born‌ ‌1986,‌ ‌Cholet,‌ ‌France)‌ ‌lives‌ ‌and‌ ‌works‌ ‌in‌ ‌London.‌ ‌Humeau‌ ‌studied‌ ‌at‌ ‌the‌ ‌Design‌ ‌Academy‌ ‌Eindhoven,‌ ‌Netherlands ‌and‌ ‌the‌ ‌Royal‌ ‌College‌ ‌of‌ ‌Art,‌ ‌London.‌ ‌

What if non-human beings mourn their dead, and weep for the extinction of other species - what if global warming is triggering the birth of spiritual feelings in them?
- Marguerite Humeau

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Marguerite Humeau is intrigued by things that are extinct and in forms that are yet to come. Working with teams of researchers from very diverse disciplines - from palaeontology and behavioural science to engineering, linguistics and many more - her projects mix science, history, myth, animism and bioethics.

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https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leaves-Grass-1855-Walt-Whitman/dp/1986235556/ref=asc_df_1986235556/?tag=googshopuk

Poems that reflect on our ties to nature "since e are made of earth and mud and soil"

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Buy Leaves Of Grass: 1855 by Whitman, Walt (ISBN: 9781986235556) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

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https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/pablo-neruda

"At night I dream that you and I are two plants
that grew together, roots entwined,
and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth,
since we are made of earth and rain.”

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Pablo Neruda is one of the most influential and widely read 20th-century poets of the Americas. "No writer of world renown is perhaps so little known to North Americans as Chilean poet Pablo Neruda," observed New York Times Book Review critic Selden Rodman. Numerous critics have praised Neruda as the greatest poet writing in the Spanish language during his lifetime. John Leonard in the New York Times declared that Neruda "was, I think, one of the great ones, a Whitman of the South." Among contemporary readers in the United States, he is largely remembered for his odes and love poems.

Born Ricardo Eliezer Neftali Reyes y Basoalto, Neruda adopted the pseudonym under which he would become famous while still in his early teens. He grew up in Temuco in the backwoods of southern Chile. Neruda's literary development received assistance from unexpected sources. Among his teachers "was the poet Gabriela Mistral who would be a Nobel laureate years before Neruda," reported Manuel Duran and Margery Safir in Earth Tones: The Poetry of Pablo Neruda. "It is almost inconceivable that two such gifted poets should find each other in such an unlikely spot. Mistral recognized the young Neftali's talent and encouraged it by giving the boy books and the support he lacked at home."

By the time he finished high school, Neruda had published in local papers and Santiago magazines, and had won several literary competitions. In 1921 he left southern Chile for Santiago to attend school, with the intention of becoming a French teacher but was an indifferent student. While in Santiago, Neruda completed one of his most critically acclaimed and original works, the cycle of love poems titled Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada-published in English translation as Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. This work quickly marked Neruda as an important Chilean poet.

Veinte poemas also brought the author notoriety due to its explicit celebration of sexuality, and, as Robert Clemens remarked in the Saturday Review, "established him at the outset as a frank, sensuous spokesman for love." While other Latin American poets of the time used sexually explicit imagery, Neruda was the first to win popular acceptance for his presentation. Mixing memories of his love affairs with memories of the wilderness of southern Chile, he creates a poetic sequence that not only describes a physical liaison, but also evokes the sense of displacement that Neruda felt in leaving the wilderness for the city. "Traditionally," stated Rene de Costa in The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, "love poetry has equated woman with nature. Neruda took this established mode of comparison and raised it to a cosmic level, making woman into a veritable force of the universe."

"In Veinte poemas," wrote David P. Gallagher in Modern Latin American Literature, "Neruda journeys across the sea symbolically in search of an ideal port. In 1927, he embarked on a real journey, when he sailed from Buenos Aires for Lisbon, ultimately bound for Rangoon where he had been appointed honorary Chilean consul." Duran and Safir explained that "Chile had a long tradition, like most Latin American countries, of sending her poets abroad as consuls or even, when they became famous, as ambassadors." The poet was not really qualified for such a post and was unprepared for the squalor, poverty, and loneliness to which the position would expose him. "Neruda travelled extensively in the Far East over the next few years," Gallagher continued, "and it was during this period that he wrote his first really splendid book of poems, Residencia en la tierra, a book ultimately published in two parts, in 1933 and 1935." Neruda added a third part, Tercera residencia, in 1947.

Residencia en la tierra, published in English as Residence on Earth, is widely celebrated as containing "some of Neruda's most extraordinary and powerful poetry," according to de Costa. Born of the poet's feelings of alienation, the work reflects a world which is largely chaotic and senseless, and which-in the first two volumes-offers no hope of understanding. De Costa quoted Spanish poet García Lorca as calling Neruda "a poet closer to death than to philosophy, closer to pain than to insight, closer to blood than to ink. A poet filled with mysterious voices that fortunately he himself does not know how to decipher." With its emphasis on despair and the lack of adequate answers to mankind's problems, Residencia en la tierra in some ways foreshadowed the post-World War II philosophy of existentialism. "Neruda himself came to regard it very harshly," wrote Michael Wood in the New York Review of Books. "It helped people to die rather than to live, he said, and if he had the proper authority to do so he would ban it, and make sure it was never reprinted."

Residencia en la tierra also marked Neruda's emergence as an important international poet. By the time the second volume of the collection was published in 1935 the poet was serving as consul in Spain, where "for the first time," reported Duran and Safir, "he tasted international recognition, at the heart of the Spanish language and tradition. At the same time ... poets like Rafael Alberti and Miguel Hernandez, who had become closely involved in radical politics and the Communist movement, helped politicize Neruda." When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, Neruda was among the first to espouse the Republican cause with the poem España en el corazon-a gesture that cost him his consular post. He later served in France and Mexico, where his politics caused less anxiety.

Some readers have found it difficult to disassociate Neruda's poetry from his fervent commitment to communism. An added difficulty lies in the fact that Neruda's poetry is very hard to translate; his works available in English represent only a small portion of his total output. Nonetheless,Communism rescued Neruda from the despair he expressed in the first parts of Residencia en la tierra, and led to a change in his approach to poetry. He came to believe "that the work of art and the statement of thought-when these are responsible human actions, rooted in human need-are inseparable from historical and political context," reported Salvatore Bizzarro in Pablo Neruda: All Poets the Poet. "He argued that there are books which are important at a certain moment in history, but once these books have resolved the problems they deal with they carry in them their own oblivion. Neruda felt that the belief that one could write solely for eternity was romantic posturing." This new attitude led the poet in new directions; for many years his work, both poetry and prose, advocated an active role in social change rather than simply describing his feelings, as his earlier oeuvre had done.

This significant shift in Neruda's poetry is recognizable in Tercera residencia, the third and final part of the "Residencia" series. Florence L. Yudin noted in Hispania that the poetry of this volume was overlooked when published and remains neglected due to its overt ideological content. "Viewed as a whole," Yudin wrote, " Tercera residencia illustrates a fluid coherence of innovation with retrospective, creativity with continuity, that would characterize Neruda's entire career." According to de Costa, as quoted by Yudin, "The new posture assumed is that of a radical nonconformist. Terra residencia must, therefore, be considered in this light, from the dual perspective of art and society, poetry and politics."

"Las Furias y las penas," the longest poem of Tercera residencia, embodies the influence of both the Spanish Civil War and the works of Spanish Baroque poet Francisco Gomez de Quevedo y Villegas on Neruda. The poem explores the psychic agony of lost love and its accompanying guilt and suffering, conjured in the imagery of savage eroticism, alienation, and loss of self-identity. Neruda's message, according to Yudin, is that "what makes up life's narrative ('cuento') are single, unconnected events, governed by chance, and meaningless ('suceden'). Man is out of control, like someone hallucinating one-night stands in sordid places." Yudin concluded that, "Despite its failed dialectic, 'Las Furias y las penas' sustains a haunting beauty in meaning and tone" and "bears the unmistakable signature of Neruda's originality and achievement."

Neruda's politics had an important impact on his poetry. Clayton Eshleman wrote in the introduction to Cesar Vallejo's Poemas humanos/ Human Poems that "Neruda found in the third book of Residencia the key to becoming the 20th-century South American poet: the revolutionary stance which always changes with the tides of time." Gordon Brotherton, in Latin American Poetry: Origins and Presence, expanded on this idea by noting that "Neruda, so prolific, can be lax, a 'great bad poet' (to use the phrase Juan Ramon Jimenez used to revenge himself on Neruda). And his change of stance 'with the tides of time' may not always be perfectly effected. But ... his dramatic and rhetorical skills, better his ability to speak out of his circumstances, ... was consummate. In his best poetry (of which there is much) he speaks on a scale and with an agility unrivaled in Latin America."

Neruda expanded on his political views in the poem Canto general, which, according to de Costa, is a "lengthy epic on man's struggle for justice in the New World." Although Neruda had begun the poem as early as 1935-when he had intended it to be limited in scope only to Chile-he completed some of the work while serving in the Chilean senate as a representative of the Communist Party. However, party leaders recognized that the poet needed time to work on his opus, and granted him a leave of absence in 1947. Later that year, however, Neruda returned to political activism, writing letters in support of striking workers and criticizing Chilean President Videla. Early in 1948 the Chilean Supreme Court issued an order for his arrest, and Neruda finished the Canto general while hiding from Videla's forces.

" Canto general is the flowering of Neruda's new political stance," Don Bogen asserted in the Nation. "For Neruda food and other pleasures are our birthright-not as gifts from the earth or heaven but as the products of human labor." According to Bogen, Canto general draws its "strength from a commitment to nameless workers-the men of the salt mines, the builders of Macchu Picchu-and the fundamental value of their labor." Commenting on Canto general in Books Abroad, Jaime Alazraki remarked, "Neruda is not merely chronicling historical events. The poet is always present throughout the book not only because he describes those events, interpreting them according to a definite outlook on history, but also because the epic of the continent intertwines with his own epic."

Although, as Bizzarro noted, "In [the Canto general], Neruda was to reflect some of the [Communist] party's basic ideological tenets," the work itself is far more than propaganda. Looking back into American prehistory, the poet examined the land's rich natural heritage and described the long defeat of the native Americans by the Europeans. He concentrated on elements of people's lives common to all people at all times. Nancy Willard wrote in Testimony of the Invisible Man, "Neruda makes it clear that our most intense experience of impermanence is not death but our own isolation among the living. ... If Neruda is intolerant of despair, it is because he wants nothing to sully man's residence on earth."

"In the Canto," explained Duran and Safir, "Neruda reached his peak as a public poet. He produced an ideological work that largely transcended contemporary events and became an epic of an entire continent and its people." According to Alazraki, "By bringing together his own odyssey and the drama of the continent, Neruda has simultaneously given to Canto general the quality of a lyric and an epic poem. The lives of conquistadors, martyrs, heroes, and just plain people recover a refreshing actuality because they become part of the poet's fate, and conversely, the life of the poet gains new depth because in his search one recognizes the continent's struggles. Canto general is, thus, the song of a continent as much as it is Neruda's own song."

Neruda returned to Chile from exile in 1953, and, said Duran and Safir, spent the last 20 years of his life producing "some of the finest love poetry in One Hundred Love Sonnets and parts of Extravagaria and La Barcarola; he produced Nature poetry that continued the movement toward close examination, almost still shots of every aspect of the external world, in the odes of Navegaciones y regresos, in The Stones of Chile, in The Art of Birds, in Una Casa en la arena and in Stones of the Sky. He continued as well his role as public poet in Canción de geste, in parts of Cantos ceremoniales, in the mythical La Espada encendida, and the angry Incitement to Nixonicide and Praise for the Chilean Revolution."

At this time, Neruda's work began to move away from the highly political stance it had taken during the 1930s. Neruda began to try to speak to everyday people simply and clearly, on a level that anyone could understand. He wrote poems on subjects ranging from rain to feet. By examining common, ordinary, everyday things very closely, according to Duran and Safir, Neruda gives us "time to examine a particular plant, a stone, a flower, a bird, an aspect of modern life, at leisure. We look at the object, handle it, turn it around, all the sides are examined with love, care, attention. This is, in many ways, Neruda ... at his best."

In 1971 Neruda reached the peak of his political career when the Chilean Communist party nominated him for president. He withdrew his nomination, however, when he reached an accord with Socialist nominee Salvador Allende. After Allende won the election he reactivated Neruda's diplomatic credentials, appointing the poet ambassador to France. It was while Neruda was serving in Paris that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, in recognition of his oeuvre. Poor health soon forced the poet to resign his post, however, and he returned to Chile, where he died in 1973-only days after a right-wing military coup killed Allende and seized power. Many of his last poems, some published posthumously, indicate his awareness of his death's approach. As Fernando Alegria wrote in Modern Poetry Studies, "What I want to emphasize is something very simple: Neruda was, above all, a love poet and, more than anyone, an unwavering, powerful, joyous, conqueror of death."

Commenting on Passions and Impressions, a posthumous collection of Neruda's prose poems, political and literary essays, lectures, and newspaper articles, Mark Abley wrote in Maclean's, "No matter what occasion provoked these pieces, his rich, tireless voice echoes with inimitable force." As Neruda eschewed literary criticism, many critics found in him a lack of rationalism. According to Neruda, "It was through metaphor, not rational analysis and argument, that the mysteries of the world could be revealed," remarked Stephen Dobyns in the Washington Post. However, Dobyns noted that Passions and Impressions "shows Neruda both at his most metaphorical and his most rational. ... What one comes to realize from these prose pieces is how conscious and astute were Neruda's esthetic choices. In retrospect at least his rejection of the path of the maestro, the critic, the rationalist was carefully calculated." In his speech upon receiving the Nobel Prize, Neruda noted that "there arises an insight which the poet must learn through other people. There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are."

In 2003, 30 years after Neruda's death, an anthology of 600 of Neruda's poems arranged chronologically was published as The Poetry of Pablo Neruda.The collection draws from 36 different translators, and some of his major works are also presented in their original Spanish. Writing in the New Leader, Phoebe Pettingell pointed out that, although some works were left out because of the difficulty in presenting them properly in English, "an overwhelming body of Neruda's output is here ... and the collection certainly presents a remarkable array of subjects and styles." Reflecting on the life and work of Neruda in the New Yorker, Mark Strand commented, "There is something about Neruda-about the way he glorifies experience, about the spontaneity and directness of his passion-that sets him apart from other poets. It is hard not to be swept away by the urgency of his language, and that's especially so when he seems swept away."

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Pablo Neruda is one of the most influential and widely read 20th-century poets of the Americas. "No writer of world renown is perhaps so little known to North Americans as Chilean poet Pablo Neruda," observed New York Times Book Review critic Selden Rodman. Numerous critics have praised Neruda as...

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https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/totem_poles/
I was intrested in how Indigenous cultures used nature to tell stories and used it literally,(by carving into tree trunks) to construct culture and identity

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https://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/9-wangechi-mutu/
Her Work combined natural forms with the body and narratives

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library book-'Black stones:red pools' https://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Stones-Red-Pools-Dumfriesshire/dp/0952545705

Goldsorthy was another artist who related to im-permanant sculpture, his 'red pools', mimicked human blood and in some ways personified the landscape, by reflecting its sense of trauma and loss

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https://www.amazon.co.uk/Everybody-about-Freedom-Olivia-Laing/dp/0393608778 -book from home                                                                     

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I was interested in looking at permanent sculpture, specifically how as humans we can relate to nature through our impermanent state of being.Ana Mendieta's silhouettes unite the human form and natural forms in this state.