Carbon Synthesis
Carbon Synthesis
Posted by Donna Franklin, Tracy Hill and Sarah Robinson | November 2024
It has been a couple of weeks since our residency in Kilpisjärvi came to an end on September 28th, 2024. For each of us, the experience has been unique, an opportunity to explore through slow and embodied experiences, reconnecting to ourselves, each other, and the Finnish landscape.
‘Paying attention acknowledges that we have something to learn from intelligences other than our own. Listening, standing witness, creates an openness to the world in which the boundaries between us can dissolve in a raindrop.’ Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
Carbon Synthesis evolved during 2020, our aim was to develop an ongoing creative project which responded to deep time and connections through carbon; to use our individual arts practices to reveal invisible narratives creating innovative ways of witnessing climate change.
The global restrictions of 2020 created a need to re-evaluate our terms of engagement with the world, and the physical spaces we could explore became smaller. As the world held its breath, a unique moment in time manifested where virtual conversation and friendship became our new reality. Our original residency was put on hold until international travel became possible again but none of us imagined it would take quite so long.
For the last 5 years our virtual creative responses have formed propositions which have created significant exchanges in ideas and challenged our personal practices. Ideas and approaches were formulated ready to take to Kilpisjärvi. Carbon synthesis explores and reveals invisible narratives and micro-environments which require us to feel and see in new ways. Indeed, spaces which resist being fully understood or contained without challenging our usual perception, imagination and human timescales.