Ambergris

Ambergris was a lecture performance by Gabriella Hirst that presented her current research which centres upon myths and murmurings of people being swallowed by, and living within, the bellies of whales.

As a guest artist for Radar’s Ecological Thinking program, Gabriella thought through the whale as a creature symbolic of social and economic systems centred on extractivism, and as an animal imbued with layered erotic and gendered associations.

Ambergris imagines whale ribcages as mass greenhouses, understands spermaceti as pre-petroleum, and considers how the rapidly industrialising world was once held un-cozily in the blankets and baleen of the dis-assembled bodies of feminised cetaceans. Galanic medical theory, sunken city archives and a hollowed out Swedish juvenile whale carcass decompose together with forgotten art history lessons, cartoon anxieties and social media fixations.

The talk was recorded by Katherine Mager at the 'Island to Island: Exhibiting Oceans in the UK Today' symposium at Sainsbury Centre on 1 Dec 2023, supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, and is part of a body of work including sculpture and film which is currently in progress. 

Hydro-institutional Critique

During the autumn of 2022, Hirst is working with colleagues from the University's Environmental Humanities Network to begin a new artistic enquiry into what she is calling 'Hydro-institutional Critique'. This project will explore the connections between the aesthetic containment of bodies of water (in landscape paintings, for example) and the containment of those bodies of water through mass irrigation and hydrological engineering programs, primarily through colonial/capitalist processes of resource extraction.

Hydro-Institutional Critique is produced for Radar by Laura Purseglove. With support from Loughborough University Environmental Humanities Network and Pandora Syperek.

How to Make a Bomb

In 2022 Radar supported the acquisition of a rare Rosa floribunda 'Atom Bomb' rose for the University's arts collection through How to Make a Bomb, an ongoing work by Hirst and Southend's The Old Waterworks. Developed in 1953, the rose was so-named amidst the wave of Cold War 'atomic mania', which also saw the naming of the bikini after nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. 

How to make a Bomb aims to bring the variety back into circulation to encourage a public care-taking for and scrutiny of the violent legacies and historical traumas of atomic armament via gardening and planting. From one of the few remaining ‘Atom Bomb’ rose specimens to be found globally (sourced from the Fineschi Rosarium rose archive in Northern Italy), Hirst has worked with The Old Waterworks’ co-director Warren Harper to propagate new generations of ‘Atom Bomb’ roses at The Old Waterworks. These are then distributed via workshops, exhibitions, guerrilla gardening and community led initiatives.

The rose was planted near International House on Loughborough's campus after interest in the project from colleagues across the University. It is cared for by LU Arts as part of the University’s arts collection, with Radar contributing to ongoing collective care and scrutiny through conversations and events.

Further information on the project can be found in the How to Make a Bomb publication available in International House and the University Library, which can also be bought from The Old Waterworks.

How to Make a Bomb is curated by David Bell for Radar and LU Arts. With support from Malcolm Barnard, Rachael Grew, Marsha Meskimmon, Loughborough University Institute of Advanced Studies, Rachel Senior, Nick Slater and Simon Kemp.

Gabriella Hirst (she/her) is an artist. She was born and grew up on Cammeraygal land (Australia) and is currently living between Berlin and London. She works primarily with moving image, performance, and with the garden as a site of critique and care. Gabriella's practice and research explores capture and control. Her most recent projects consider possible relationships between plant taxonomies, landscape painting, art conservation and nuclear history. Gabriella the recipient of the 2020 ACMI/Ian Potter Moving Image Commission, is a previous Marten Bequest Scholar and a recipient of the John Crampton Fellowship. She is an associate lecturer in Media Studies with the RCA School of Architecture.

The Old Waterworks (TOW) is an artist-led charity in Southend-on-Sea that provides studios, facilities, and research and development opportunities for artists.