February 20 – March 7, 2025
London, United Kingdom
ARTIST TALK: February 26th. 6pm, in SOVA Lecture Room
OVERVIEW
Dr. Susan Schuppli will be working in collaboration with students from SOVA in Nicole’s 4D Studio class on her project SOUNDING ICE: sensing frozen flows. Via sound and various field recording strategies, the project explores the signals of climate change found in and around the Yukon and Klondike Rivers—their confluences and histories.
The practice of ‘sounding’ refers both to the taking of depth measurements in a body of water as well as the sourcing of ‘evidence’ needed in a preliminary step towards taking action. This project and forthcoming website will document our collective efforts to ‘sound out’ local expressions and histories of the environment—Earth evidence—and its urgent calls to action.
My earlier work as an artist-researcher and writer explored material evidence, specifically the ways in which non-human witnesses, enter into trials and tribunals to testify to historical events, in particular those involving political violence, ethnic conflict, and war crimes. This work assumed many different modes of communication from legal analysis and public advocacy to theoretical reflection and creative exploration. Current research and artistic production expands these investigations to examine how environmental systems and the transformations brought about by global warming are generating new forms of evidence; creating, in effect, a planetary archive of material witnesses.
BIOGRAPHY
Susan Schuppli is a researcher and artist based in the UK whose work examines material evidence from war and conflict to environmental disasters and climate change. Current work is focused on learning from ice and the politics of cold.
Creative projects have been exhibited throughout Europe, Asia, Canada, and the US. She has published widely within the context of media and politics and is author of the book, Material Witness published by MIT Press in 2020.
Schuppli is Professor and Director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths University of London where she is also an affiliate artist-researcher and Board Chair of Forensic Architecture. Previously she was Senior Research Fellow and Project Co-ordinator of Forensic Architecture. Prior to working in the UK she was an Associate Professor in visual/media arts in Canada. Schuppli received her PhD from Goldsmiths and participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program after completing her MFA at the University of California San Diego. She is the recipient of the 2016 ICP Infinity Award.
Supported by Yukon School of Visual Arts, the Klondike Institute of Art & Culture (KIAC), YukonU, with funding support from a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Connections Grant / Toronto Biennial of Art.