ALICIA ESCOTT INTERVIEW

“Undoing the construct of ‘nature’ as a thing separate from our world.”

At a time when we are entering a long overdue phase of recalibration with our relationship to our environment, Days is speaking with the artist Alicia Escott about her work and the balance of action, initiative and responsibility. As this is written, the world’s lock-down has dolphins in the Mediterranean enjoying beaches without people, jellyfish drift gracefully through Venice and lion families in South Africa sleep on concrete highways. Let’s talk about art in the drowned world.

Days: How do you introduce yourself?

Alicia Escott: I’m an interdisciplinary artist.

D: Can you tell us briefly about your ‘calling’ as an artist? What drives your work and how do you see it function best?

A: I feel like I am here to bear witness to the unfolding climate emergency and the dumbfounding moment we are living through. In a variety of mediums I take notes on the emotional quality of living though this time as best I can.

I stopped making work briefly after I finished my undergrad in 2002 in Chicago and wanted to go into an environmental field, when I returned to making later that year I committed my work to being exclusively environmental and social justice focused. This was really against the grain with the art world at the time, but with the rise of social practice, and politically engaged dialogues it’s become more a part of the cannon in the last five years or so.

I like to have multiple access points to my work so that it can exist in multiple settings and communities. It can be a challenge to straddle being relevant to a theoretical art world frame work as well as, environmental and activist groups, and also to be relatable to folks who would not align with either of these identities. But I feel it’s important work, more so than ever.

And the crowd rushed together, Trying to keep warm..., 2013

D: There is a paradoxical ambiguity of technology and nature in your pieces. Can you speak more to us about this tension and that relationship?

A: Yes. I feel this has to do with a telescoping in and out of timescales. I often talk about how the very concept or word “nature” is problematic and reinforces a false othering of the non-human. That we are not a part of “nature”, that “nature” is over there. Even when we say we need to “save nature” that statement ultimately objectifying, as if this were not saving us.

So in this sense, that plastic package, or your iphone are all a part of nature. But clearly they are not, right? Because we are working on scales that are crazy! In 2006 iphones didn’t exist, now there are 700,000,00 of them and each one represents enormous quantities of extracted materials and the byproducts of that extraction. Half the plastic produced in the history of the world is from the last 13 years, all of it in the last 50 or so. Because of these massive scales and the scale of the 6th extinction — other species haven’t had time to figure out the niche of how to live with all these man-made materials, and those multi-species relationships and exchanges, that give & take are ecosystems — or what we call nature. So There is a back and forth between a telescoped out embrace of these electronic materials made from earth minerals, that will ultimately be reclaimed and a telescoping into the profound damage they are doing and what cost will be born before that occurs.

D: What things in your world or biography find themselves into your pieces? Or: Where is the threshold between personal and public statements for you?

A: I feel a responsibility to channel the emotional disquiet of our time in my work. So it weaves in and out. Sometimes personal, sometimes a mask of the personal.

I tackle how we mourn with the collective loss of living through the 6th great extinction through the lens of personal heartbreak and longing.

In early 2011 I started a series where I wrote unrequited love letters to extinct species where I would tell them everything that had happened to me since they left me like rock ‘n’ roll, the Internet and the stock market. I would mail them to people. This was a way to reexamine and retell the stories of our culture. It wove in and out of time with many of the letters beginning in the future and looking back at the present.

This was really making myself vulnerable and creating a sort of voyeurism.

Since the pandemic began, I’ve seen letter writing to the future has taken hold as a new medium so I have been thinking about revisiting this ongoing series. It feels relevant.

D: Are there any other influences or inspirations that are part of your process?

A: Science. Both a love for it, respect of it and trust in it. As well as a skepticism that it can be used as a tool of colonial thinking to steal, “discover” and reframe knowledge that is held in non-scientific language or non-western systems of thinking.

D: Can you tell us more about the “And the crowd rushed together, Trying to keep warm...,” series?

A: It’s interesting you ask about that show, a number of works from that time have come up in the past couple years, especially the video works. This was my first solo show of physical works made since having been focused on the letters discussed above for a period of a year or two, it and those came out of a real depression in grappling with all this stuff. The drawing of Koko was made while I was in residence at the Djerassi Artist Residency. I wanted to make a site specific work but could not settle on one. For years I had been wanting to draw a an upright bipedal primate to make a video of myself inside to talk about the evolutionary nostalgia for a time of togetherness before the separation of species. I felt stuck at Djerassi and resolved to just return to that idea, even though it did not seem sight specific. When I started doing research on primates to find source material and source images, I learned Koko, the famous sign language speaking gorilla, actually lived in the town that Djerassi is located in, in fact before becoming an art residency, Djerassi was almost turned into a gorilla sanctuary. So it was absolutely sight specific! I made the drawing of a male Silverback gorilla and then I got inside it and walked around the grounds looking for the famous Koko. Koko never procreated and it’s thought her project will die with her. This became the metaphor for that work. A looking back to the hopes and dreams of the 1960’s and 70’s with the clarity hindsight, seeing that these dreams were sterile at best. This show was 2012/13 we had just come out of a time of hope for a renewable future that was dashed by the collapse of the Copenhagen climate talks, the great recession, the advent of fracking. I had myself just come out of a period of accepting that we were giving up the habitability of earth and the crushing depression of looking at this soberly. So I was cloaked inside a drawing of a male Silverback gorilla wandering the grounds of Djerassi looking for Koko, 20 years too late. The title of the main video and the show “And the crowd rushed together, trying to keep warm...,” was taken from a Credence Clearwater pop song about Woodstock. Half way into the video (which is otherwise full of only the laboring slowed down sound of my movement inside the crunch of plastic), music come in for just a few seconds— playing, unidentifiably, in reverse the refrain from the song, then my form joins that of the Silverback and from that crescendo the same refrain plays forward, it’s about 20 seconds of music in a 7 minuet video. And that was sort of that show: 20 seconds of hope inside of 7 minuets of seeking and despair.

The video was shown on a tiny screen embedded on its own on the wall. The other video piece was shown up high projected small reminiscent of a 1970’s at home travel slide show. We were seeking a kind of minimalist restraint and a layering of ideas with the installation. For example, the photograph you are including here of the drawing of the photo of the last Dusky Seaside Sparrow was shown on an (already) outdated iphone 4. The piece was titled Drawing of the Last Dusky Seaside Sparrow sent over text message, all of my drawings of animals on plastic always are talking about the mediation of images. How we are image makers. How we essentialize these animals down to the image of them: an idea, a brand. By being on plastic it references the packaging of these images for our consumption. Most of the source material for the drawings are from images on the internet, so it’s layers upon layers of mediation between me and that animal. I believe part of how we collectively self sooth and cope with living through mass extinction is that we still have images of these animals that we can look at any time. So my longing attempt at engagement with these images in the videos is a reckoning with that.

And the crowd rushed together, Trying to keep warm..., 2013

D: What is next for you?

A: I am writing this while we are still amidst the shelter in place. It is a scary time. I also have a lot of hope when I look out at these blue skies that we can all see collectively, I hope we can hold onto these blue skies together. Change has come. My work feels more relevant than ever.

This was supposed to be a massively busy spring for me, and even though everything changed, it’s still very busy. I am working on a public curatorial project in response to it with 100 Days Action as well as work around sea level rise and engaging conversations around adaptation managed retreat from areas that will be affected by sea level rise, as well as exploratory works in the studio, and helping others name this time— But really, I am really trying to look honestly at this busyness. I often think we approach “saving the world” with the same hardworking, caffeinated, capitalist mindset that got us here, when really if we all just slowed down that would be the greatest thing we could do to “save” the planet. That what it wants is exactly what we want and we just need to stop fighting ourselves. So this “Great Pause” is a fascinating time. I fear it’s only a taste of what’s ahead if we don’t listen to what its teaching us. I feel we are at an inflection point. So I am working hard but also working on trying not to work so hard if that makes sense.

I have some sculptures with wildflowers started from seeds that were supposed to go into a show at Berkeley Art Center before everything was postponed or canceled and now are in my back yard, I’m trying to listen to what they can teach me.

FRED SANDBACK & PROYECTOS MONCLOVA

THE GOON SAX “SHE KNOWS”