#PERFORMANCE #INSTALLATION #SOUND #PARTICIPATORY #CLIMATE #ENVIRONMENT #EMBODIMENT
In May, Kat was part of the Anthropocene Curriculum event Unearthing the Present, discussing microplastics along with Juliana A. Ivar do Sul, Jérôme Kaiser, and Joana MacLean.
The recording of the session “What’s so micro about plastics” is now online.
Watch the full seminar “What’s so micro about plastics”
Got a question about microplastics and art? Get in touch.
We are delighted to announce that Kat will be showing for the first time her Carbon Echoes trilogy at Ars Electronica festival 2022.
The three works shown together are Stranger to the Trees, This Land is Not Mine and Palaeoplasticene.
Entanglement with carbon is an essential component of the extreme influence of humans on the planet. This trilogy of works introduces three artistic responses to this problem space from Kat Austen’s practice that address positions on aspects of anthropic entanglement with carbon at a more-than-human timescale. Presented together for the first time, the three works interrogate carbon and the impact of humans on its distribution around the planet and through time. The impact of fossil fuel extraction on landscapes, society and ecosystems, the impact of the spread of microplastic — the starting material for which is predominantly fossil fuels — on trees and forests and the reconfiguration of enduring carbon-based materials in a speculative past. These positions reflect not only on the climate crisis but also on quality of life for humans and for the plants, animals and ecosystems with which humans share the planet.
Ars Electronica Festival
7-11th September 2022
Linz, Austria
Palaeoplasticene (2021)
We are delighted to announce the performance premiere of Mapping Gender – a creation by Anders Duckworth in collaboration with Kat Austen – at The Place in London this autumn.
Three years in the making, Mapping Gender explores the synchrony between power dynamics applied to bodies and to landscapes.
Mapping Gender is a multisensory exhibition of dance, image, scent, sound and research. It’s an invitation to explore the parallels between cartography and historical clothing through a lens of non-binary experiences. Created by Anders Duckworth in collaboration with sound artist Kat Austen, Mapping Gender looks at landscapes, the way we draw borders and create boundaries on maps to carve up geographical space whilst also asking us to explore how we look at the body and how we use gender to carve and divide people.
Created with nine interdisciplinary artists and a group of trans/non-binary volunteers, Mapping Gender includes selections from a series of recorded interviews with non-binary people discussing their personal experiences. By drawing together people who exist on the margins and the ‘in-between’ spaces we open up new possibilities and provide an opportunity to re-discover the place and complexities we find in gender.
Date: 28th September 2022
Location: The Place, 17 Duke’s Road, London, WC1H 9PY
Price: £18 (£14 concession)
Exhibition Information:
Palaeoplasticene in Colliding Epistemes at Casa Tranzit by Cluj Cultural Centre, Cluj, Romania
7.7.2022-3.8.2022
On Saturday Kat will be playing alongside Anders Duckworth’s performance of Mapping Gender as part BALTIC is Curious. Kat has collaborated with Anders on Mapping Gender over the last 2.5 years, creating the sound and music for this exhibition of performance, image, sound and research. It’s an invitation to see the parallels between cartography and clothing, to explore how society controls, shapes and demarcates both landscapes and human bodies – all told through the lens of non-binary experiences.
In creating the soundscape over the last two years Kat has carried out research in liminal spaces – at coasts, riversides and boundaries. In Saturday’s performance, she will use her hacked scientific equipment to play sounds from a water sample that she collected from the Baltic Sea in December last year alongside water from outside the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art.
Performance details:
Saturday 2nd July, 19:00 – 20:00
BALTIC
Gateshead NE8 3BA
Booking essential. Tickets GBP8-12.
Kat recently took part in two sessions at the MARKERS: MATERIAL DELINEATIONS OF THE PRESENT Anthropocene Curriculum event series as part of Unearthing the Present at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
Conversations Beyond the Human
With Kat Austen, Kristine L. DeLong, Jens Zinke, Nigel Clark
and
What’s So Micro About Plastics?
With Juliana A. Ivar do Sul, Jérôme Kaiser, Kat Austen, Joana MacLean
Meeting point in the courtyard of the Museum Pankow:
Kultur- und Bildungszentrum Sebastian Haffner Hof
Prenzlauer Allee 227/228
10405 Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg
Saturday 7th May
17:30-20:00
Microplastics are tiny particles of plastic found everywhere across the planet. The majority of plastic in the environment today is made from petrochemicals. Released into the environment continuously for decades, plastic and microplastic particles accumulate. As long-lived traces of human activity, microplastics can now be detected almost everywhere – even in the remotest areas. Building on her previous DIY research into microplastics in soil and water ecosystems and how they coexist with trees and rocks, join artist Kat Austen for these first explorations into catching airborne microplastics using adapted fog-catchers.
Presented in the context of the NEUSTART Kultur funded installation of Stranger to the Trees in Großer Wasserspeicher in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, this workshop involves participatory research into the reverberations of petrochemical products.
Registration: studio@katausten.com
Palaeoplasticene Platform and Installation will be shown in the Colliding Epistemes exhibition
Bozar Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels
Exhibition Period: 6.5.2022-19.6.2022
Public opening 5th May 6:30pm
Panel Discussion: Shifting grounds of art-science collaborations in the age of a planetary crisis
5-6:30 pm, 5th May
Kat will also partipate in the panel discussion alongside Chus Martinez (Head of the Institute of Art Gender Nature of the FHNW Academy of Arts and Design in Basel, Switzerland, ES), and Markos K. Digenis (marine biologist, GR), moderated by Maja & Reuben Fowkes (curators, UK).
We are delighted to announce the double exhibition of Stranger to the Trees and This Land is Not Mine at the Großer Wasserspeicher, Berlin, alongside a live performance of This Land is Not Mine album and new workshop.
Exhibition Information
22nd April 2022 – 8th May 2022
Großer Wasserspeicher
Belforter Straße, 10405 Berlin
Exhibition opening: 22/04/2022, 6-10 pm, Großer Wasserspeicher
Opening hours: 23/04–08/05/2022, 12-8 pm daily, Thursdays 12–10 pm
This Land is Not Mine is premiering in the context of the Fossile Erfahrung exhibition by Prater Gallery in conversation with the solo exhibition of Stranger to the Trees in collaboration with post-gallery.online, presented in the context of Neustart Kultur.
Performance
Kat will perform the entire This Land is Not Mine album in the Kleiner Wasserspeicher on the Berlin Gallery Weekend.
More info: Performance Evening with Kat Austen and Elske Rosenfeld
30th April 2022
6-8 pm
Kleiner Wasserspeicher
Belforter Straße, 10405 Berlin
Workshop Participatory Artistic Research: Exploring Airborne Microplastics
7th May 2022
Date and Location TBC
04.02.2022-03.04.2022
ŁAŹNIA Contemporary Art Centre, 1 Jaskółcza Streetand Strajku Dokerów 5, Gdańsk
Palaeoplasticene Platform and Stranger to the Trees are exhibited as part of COLLIDING EPISTEMES: ART, SCIENCE, ANTHROPOCENES.