Peacock Visual Arts presents Fertiliser, a group exhibition at The W OR M of recent Scottish Art School graduates that brings together newly commissioned artworks by artists Ellen Berns, Cassia Dodman, Ailie Ormston and Anna Wachsmuth.

Fertiliser is curated by the new artist-run initiative Tendency Towards, a group of graduates from Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen, who rather than trying to assert themselves individually in other cities, have decided to bring new talent from across Scotland to Aberdeen.

Tendency Towards have encouraged the selected artists to pursue new ways of working in an open manner, building upon their practice. The show reflects Tendency Towards’ core values of exposing Aberdeen audiences to new and exciting visual art production, through the pooling of creative talent and experimentation.

The exhibition Fertiliser exemplifies how artists, through collective labour, can nurture a contemporary art practice.

Fertiliser an essay by Tendency Towards
Fertiliser operates simultaneously as a showcase of how a new generation of artists are responding to critical discourse within visual art, as well as acting as an example of how collective pooling of artists’ labour allows for the creation of supportive, fertile and nourishing contexts for the dissemination of new perspectives in the contemporary arts ecology. Although not originally conceived of as a thematic exhibition, commonalities across the practices have emerged that are indicative of wider concerns being addressed by a multitude of artists; namely a performative and investigative approach towards both identity and environments.

Ellen Berns and Ailie Ormston both use the construction of characters to examine how roles are assumed and played out in social settings. Berns’ work, Framför Teven, tells the tale of an unnamed individual who deals with the realisation that one day their living situation is dramatically changed when a flatmate does not return, leaving their milk out of the fridge to fester. Set primarily in front of a television where the character passively lives in the fantasies of cinema and eating crisps, a situation occurs where they ask themselves if this new situation is really as bad as it first appears. The narrative of the piece is influenced by Swedish poet Edith Södergran’s work Den väntande Själen, (The Waiting Soul), and Berns sees the work as way of dealing with her relationship to her homeland Sweden and “existing in a space without truly being present”.

Ailie Ormston similarly takes on the role of a character in her work The Pestitarian, which comprises of three songs presented as a video piece within an installation. The Pestitarian is ridden with guilt over identifying as lactose intolerant despite not having a full intolerance, exacerbated by irrational thoughts surrounding dietary choices and how the social structures of eating habits may relay aspects of their character. They work in a kitchen yet have no time to eat, and struggle between choosing to identify as pescatarian or Presbyterian.

Familiar environments and imagery are tackled within the practices of Cassia Dodman and Anna Wachsmuth, where both investigate aspects of objects and structures that are common within their immediate locations. Dodman presents a large sculptural installation which initiates various barriers, boundaries, and containers. Agitating the Cusp has been influenced by the structures and systems that occupy rural agricultural space - dividing, designating and bypassing land and material - such as electric fences, pools of water, underground plumbing pipes and crossing stiles. These are translated into the exhibition space, carrying over their unspoken limits and connotations of controlled navigation and applying it to an audience, whether functionally or through association. Materials are charged, exchanging a subversive energy; their fluxed state is maintained in a delicate equilibrium between suspense and action, the collapse of which is both a disruptive and a compelling outcome. 

Wachsmuth’s Träume aus Fernost examines manifestations of colonial hierarchies within everyday settings. A colouring book that is (re-)creating stereotypes of a place called “Far East”, defined and determined by the West, is juxtaposed with steel frames, a stand in for a market dominated by Chinese steel production, defining very low market prices to the cost of heavy environmental pollution. A 2D print of a doric column symbolises an ideal of a so called “civilised” and “enlightened” Western aesthetic, which was instrumental in colonising global markets and cultures. Here Wachsmuth refers to digital colonialism as a new form, taking influence from digital reconstructions of Palmyra and further archeological sites under the ethos of “preserving the past protecting the future”, which present Palmyras’ Triumph Arch in prestigious parks and public squares in around the world. Another element reflecting directly on the economical strive of colonialism is the branded E of German supermarket Edeka which is derived from Einkaufsgenossenschaft der Kolonialwarenhändler (wholesale cooperative of colonial grocers) - abbreviated to E. d. K.

Tendency Towards, November 2017