Contribution short abstract:

The silicate standing stones at Avebury in Wiltshire were brought by glacial flows during the Eocene, a period of climate change. In this workshop, I will consider what it means to sense their materiality and how they might be actively engaged to stimulate action on climate change in the present.

Contribution long abstract:

I am an academic and artist with a long-standing interest in how material provocations might stimulate people’s active engagement with contemporary issues, initiated by research on the work of German 20th Century artist Joseph Beuys. Last year, I joined a group of artists from Bath Artists’ Studios on a project led by Archaeologist and Artist Fay Stevens, encouraging us to create artworks in response to Avebury in Wiltshire, the site of a Neolithic henge monument. I was immediately impressed by the numinous power of the silicate standing stones at the site and was interested to discover that they had been brought there by glacial flows during the Eocene, a period of major climate change. In this workshop, I am interested in considering what it means to sense these erratics as materials that have been affected by a previous instance of climate change and how they might be actively engaged to stimulate action on climate change in the present. Further, how would such a practice sit alongside, or in a continuum with, the many and varied spiritual practices that continue to play out in relation to and in response to the stones, some of which themselves relate to ecological imperatives? I will bring photographs of the stones at Avebury with me, but will also seek to bring a small fragment of errant sarsen sandstone with me, if possible.