Camp Breakdown Break Down – SSW

Ximena Alarcón is an artist who engages in listening to migratory spaces and connecting this to individual and collective memories. She is interested in creating sound art works, using networked technologies, derived from listening experiences in interstitial spaces where borders become diffused, such as underground transport systems, dreams, and the ‘in-between’ space in the context of migration. Ximena has a PhD in Music, Technology and Innovation, from De Montfort University. She has studied Deep Listening practice with Pauline Oliveros and in 2012 she obtained a Deep Listening certificate. Since 2011 she has worked as a Research Fellow at Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice (CRiSAP).

Bruce Ball is a soil scientist working part time for SRUC, Edinburgh. He has researched soil structure, soil care and greenhouse gas emissions from soil for over 30 years. He is interested in increasing soil quality and personal awareness of soil by using visual assessments of soil structure. He also increases public soil awareness by use of creative writing and poetry. He has written a book ‘The Landscape Below’ based on his experiences in small agricultural communities to show how caring for the soil is similar to caring for ourselves. This can help us to restore links with others and with the environment and thereby re-awaken impulses of cooperation, economy and compassion.

Tim Collins and Reiko Goto are environmental artists, researchers and authors working together since they first met in San Francisco in 1985. Early work focused on a public realm model of practice dealing with urban critters, habitat and the cultural understanding of water. Over the last fifteen years they maintain a focus on the cultural conditions of environmental change and its human-non-human impacts. The primary themes that inform their mature work began with ethical and aesthetic entanglements found in ecological restoration, leading to ideas about the emancipation of natural systems from the constraints of industrial culture. More recently this led to new ideas about empathy between human and non-human entities.

Charlotte Du Cann is a writer, editor and community activist, living in coastal Suffolk. She is Art Editor of the Dark Mountain books and the editor of “Playing for Time – Making Art as if the World Mattered” (Oberon Books). Previously a lifestyle journalist in London, she went on the road during the 90s and has written extensively about cultural and metaphysical downshift. Between 2008-14 she worked in grassroots communications within the Transition movement, including founding the Social Reporting Project and Transition Free Press. Her book, “52 Plants That Shook My World – A Radical Return to Earth” is published by Two Ravens Press.

Dudendance Theatre create work that defies a singular interpretation having pioneered an original voice by layering film, soundtrack, narrative and movement. Each new piece exists within an ever evolving narrative whereby characters re-emerge in later work. Very often live performance is transposed into film- shifting from the rehearsal studio onto location and then re-absorbed into live work. The starting point remains physical and devised from rigorous research with international collaborators as well as non-professionals. Dudendance also create site-specific pieces, most recently as durational work in public spaces.

Karen Grant is a campaigner with Reforesting Scotland’s Thousand Huts campaign (www.thousandhuts.org). She has a particular interest in the role of spaces in autonomous organising and empowerment. Her background includes work with social justice campaigns at a European level, work with the Green members of the Scottish Parliament, and then 5 years as Director of Scottish Education and Action for Development where she developed projects supporting community-based climate action. She sat for 5 years on the decision-making panel of the Climate Challenge Fund. She recently graduated in painting from Glasgow School of Art and co-manages a farm in North East Scotland. She dreams of having her own hut.

Nick Hunt is a writer and storyteller, and co-editor of the Dark Mountain books. His first book “Walking the Woods and the Water” is an account of an eight-month walk from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul. He has written for The Guardian, The Economist, Resurgence, New Internationalist and other publications, but prefers telling stories around campfires.

Mari Keski-Korsu is an transdisciplinary artist. She explores how ecological and socio-economical changes manifest in everyday life. How does macrocosm become microcosm and visa versa? Mainly, the starting point is in location, a place and relations to it and collaborations with different kinds of communities, individuals, and species. Keski-Korsu’s practice can be, for example, interventions, documentary, performance, virtual worlds, and installations. She is interested in the relations in between art, activism, politics, and science. She will facilitate rhythm balancing whisking sessions in a sauna during the camp.

Nance Klehm is a process-oriented ecologist with proven experience in restructuring existing situations into more functional systems with a strong social dynamic. Nance and her work has been reported on in over 50 national and international media outlets including radio, print and 13 books. She has formally exhibited her work nationally and internationally in galleries and museums. She was named a 2012 Utne Visionary and has been a two time finalist for the Curry-Stone Prize. As Director of Social Ecologies, she started ‘The Ground Rules’ which runs six neighborhood compost-soil centers and trains residents in community bioremediation in Chicago. She is currently at work on a book on: Soil.

Alastair McIntosh. I live within the old parish boundary of Govan in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, am an independent scholar, activist, writer, speaker and broadcaster from the Isle of Lewis and work freelance but with academic links that include being an Honorary Senior Research Fellow (visiting professor) in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow and a Research Fellow at the School of Divinity (New College) in the University of Edinburgh. I also serve locally in Govan as a founding director of the GalGael Trust and a Fellow and special advisor to the Centre for Human Ecology (CHE) of which I was previously director.

James Reid. Tap o’ Noth Permaculture is a smallholding and demonstration site based near the village of Rhynie in rural Aberdeenshire. Both a ScoLAND Centre for the Permaculture Association of Britain and an official Master Plan site for the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia, Tap o’ Noth hosts courses and workshops in the fields of ecological design, sustainable agriculture and re-skilling in traditional rural crafts and practices. Home to James Reid and his family, the smallholding is 8 acres of ever expanding food gardens, animal systems, ponds, broadleaf woodland and forest gardens plus many more informative examples of applied Permaculture Design.

Paul Spencer trained as a pattern cutter in the clothing trade 30 years ago in Bradford, west Yorkshire. Over the last 20 years he has adapted and retrained as an upholsterer making boat covers and awnings. For last 14 years he has been making and developing Mongolian style yurt dwellings in hopes to find affordable, low impact, year round living. Spencer wants to share his knowledge and skill with the next generation. He will also lead a two-day yurt building workshop during the camp. Spencer’s company Highland Yurts is providing two yurts for the camp.

Andy Wightman: I am a writer, researcher, analyst, commentator and activist on issues of land, power, governance, democracy and money. Over the past 20 years I have undertaken a wide range of work on land tenure, landownership, land reform and, more recently community land rights, governance and the hegemonic dimensions of land relations. In 2010, I wrote The Poor had No Lawyers (Birlinn), an attempt to provide an historical analysis of the land question and to reinvigorate debate around land relations. I remain hopeful of success in countering hegemonic landed power in all its guises.

Brett Bloom is an artist, activist, writer and publisher. He works mainly in collaborative groups, like Temporary Services, and situations. He regularly works with ecological issues. In the summer of 2015, Bloom will coordinate two long, intensive training sessions in London and rural Scotland. They are part of a multi-year effort called Breakdown Break Down, that mobilize others to articulate and build a civil culture to prepare for and survive climate chaos and breakdown. One key goal is to generate new stories that replace western petro-subjectivity, our industrialized sense of self and place, with other narratives and possibilities.

Nuno Sacramento was born in Maputo, Mozambique and now lives and works in Aberdeenshire where he is Director of the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in Lumsden. He is a graduate of the deAppel curatorial training programme and also completed a Doctorate in Visual Arts at the School of Media Arts and Imaging, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee. He is currently committed to issues of land use and ownership, climate change and the commons, in relation to art practice. He is involved in research, project curation, writing and lecturing.

Originally from Lisbon, Portugal, Sofia Oliveira studied Architecture in Lisbon and Italy and worked for several practices in Lisbon and Amsterdam. She also has a Master degree in Sustainable Community Design from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, and has a particular interest in low carbon buildings, passive design with natural ventilation, environmental friendly materials and the adaptation of buildings for climate change. She will participate in the camp site planning and huts design.

Yvonne Billmore graduated from Duncan of Jordonstone College of Art and Design in 2011 with a BA (hons) in Fine Art. She went on to work at GENERATORprojects and as an Engagement Co-ordinator for Dundee Survival Group. Her personal practice encompasses cross-media sculptural work; including performance and printmaking. She regularly exhibits her work within Scotland.

Sara Gallie is the current Office & Finance Manager at SSW since 2013. Sara is also a practising artist interested in landscape and natural occurrence and is an MA graduate of Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen.

Uist graduated from Duncan of Jordonstone College of Art in May of 2014. He currently works as SSW’s Junior Technician, as part of a Youth Trainee Programme. Working alongside our Senior Technician in the workshops, Uist is expanding his knowledge and skill base. This is in keeping with Uist’s personal practice where he is focused on ‘developing skills though an art practice’.

Conor Baird