Portfolio

‘The Endless Turn and Return’ was commissioned by Hampshire Cultural Trust to complement ‘Beauty of the Earth, the Art of William, Jane and May Morris’, which ran concurrently in The Arc, Gallery Space.

In her book ‘Staying with the Trouble. Making Kin in the Chthulucene’,

Donna J. Haraway writes,

‘We become with each other or not at all.’* 

Haraway’s writing is a conversation about what we stand to lose if we don’t change the way we see ourselves in relation to the wider world. Eileen’s practice, as illustrated in her handmade animation, ’The Endless Turn and Return’, expresses this sentiment, which communicates her dedication to handmade, slow, repetitive, labour-intensive, and uncalibrated processes. These are embodied acts of ‘making with’ Nature, working within a circular economy by thinking of waste as a source of renewal and adopting a less anthropocentric perspective. It is her form of political activism.

Eileen’s work unfolds slowly in relation to materials, light, and the seasons, taking days and, in the case of this film, 3 1/2 months to produce. It cannot be rushed. As such, it is the antithesis of today’s fast-paced digital culture, which promises instant gratification with little authenticity.

The film's 3-min, 10-sec duration consists of 2,634 physical cyanotype prints, a low-toxic, historical process discovered by Sir John Hershel in 1842. It involves hand-coating paper with light-sensitive ferrous-based salts, which are then exposed to sunlight before being developed in water. The result is a Prussian blue print. Eileen went on to tone each print using botanicals from her garden and Crab Wood, which gives the film an organic, constantly shifting colour-scape, embedding the ecology of the site into the work.

Boris Allenou, a Sound Artist, created the soundtrack accompanying the film by capturing the electrical activity of plants, which complements and acknowledges the role that vegetal life plays in Eileen’s practice.

The other works in the exhibition were made in response to two sites. The first was a residency Eileen undertook at ’The Chelsea Physic Garden’ in London. This small, densely planted public garden was set up in 1673 by apothecaries as a place of healing and education. It still plays an important role in medical research. Eileen’s botanical journey through deep time, both historically, scientifically and seasonally, unearthed the entangled and fragile relationships that exist between humans and non-humans as well as the connection to horticultural, medicinal and human history.

The resulting black and white silver gelatin prints and artist's book examine areas behind the scenes, where propagation, or SEM vegetal scans, as well as the rich and varied history of the garden’s snowdrops, are on display.

The second site is the garden and surrounding cemetery, now nature reserve, of ‘The Gatehouse Studios’, where she has her darkroom. This wild and beautiful place provides a constantly changing tapestry of seasonal plant life. Using the cyanotype process, she has produced two large stitched fabric pieces that reflect the ‘Vanitas’ tradition of 17th-century Dutch still-life painting. This style of work was a visual representation of philosophical ideas about the nature of life, referencing the transience and impermanence of earthly existence. The word ‘Vanitas’ derives from the Hebrew ‘Hebel’, which translates literally as ‘breath’. Created at a time of great social uncertainty and anxiety, they seem a fitting reference in our current climate.

*Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), p. 4