Ecological Thinking
A programme of artist commissions and events exploring what creative and collaborative methodologies can bring to ecological study. Read more
Laura Harrington
(Photo credit: You Cannot Step In The Same River Twice artist talk)
Between 2010 and 2012, Laura Harrington worked with the music maker Kaffe Matthews on Where are the wild ones?, an audio-visual opera exploring the wild salmon returning from the North Atlantic to their place of birth, the River Tyne in north-east England, to spawn. As part of this project, they worked with children from three schools near the banks of the Tyne in Newcastle. For her period as a Visiting Artist attached to Radar's Ecological Thinking series of commissions, Harrington hopes to track down some of these children - who will now be in their late teens/early twenties - to explore whether the project has had any lasting impacts on them. Through this, Harrington hopes to interrogate questions of time, narrative and ecology in contemporary arts practice.
In December 2023, Harrington celebrated the launch of her latest book at International House on Loughborough University campus. The book, titled You Cannot Step in the Same River Twice revisits and reflected Harrington's Where are the wild ones? project reflecting on the significant shifts in the river's ecosystem, as well as in arts and environmental policy over the past ten years, all while considering broader human, animal, and geological time scales.
The book launch featured a roundtable discussion with Harrington, Laura Purseglove—former Radar programme producer and current producer at Science Gallery London—and Professor Stephen Rice, a Loughborough University expert in River Science who collaborated on the original project. Attendees received complimentary copies of the publication and enjoyed warm refreshments during the event, which was free but required advance booking.
Laura Harrington is a multi-disciplinary artist, researcher and creative producer living and working in the North East of England. Her work explores the complex relations between humans and unstable/overlooked landscapes, often through cross-disciplinary research and co-production. Situated between art, science and philosophy her practice of film-making, installation, drawing, fieldwork and listening seeks to create works that centre on an idea of ‘upstream consciousness’, that draws on upland ecologies to think about various relations and connections. Recent exhibitions and residencies include EKO8 (Slovenia), MIMA (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, UK), Projections (Tyneside Cinema, UK), UNIDEE/Cittadellarte, (Biella, Italy), Hangmen Projects (Stockholm), HIAP (Helsinki International Arts Programme, Finland), Durham University (Leverhulme), Invisible Dust, UK, Woodhorn Museum, UK, BALTIC 39, UK, VARC, UK and AV Festival 12, UK. She is practice-based doctoral researcher at Northumbria University.
Projects
Events
You Cannot Step in the Same River Twice
Wed 22 June 2022
18:30pm - 20:00pm
An online discussion bringing together arts and sciences to explore measures of time, environmental change, policy and politics. About this event The focus of Laura Harrington’s Visiting Artist project with Radar concerns a past collaboration with Berlin based sound artist and composer Kaffe Matthews. Now ten years old, 'Where are the wild ones?' is an audio-visual opera, which explored the migration of wild salmon along the River Tyne. As part of this project, Harrington and Matthews worked with children from three schools near the banks of the river Tyne and scientists from the Environment Agency North East to weave together stories, music and scientific data. Returning to this project a decade on affords Harrington a frame through which to consider the significant changes seen within the river, arts and environmental policy in a ten year period against a backdrop of overlapping human, animal and geological time… Read more
