'From Mimicry to Symbiosis' at the Practicing Landscape Symposium: Mining the Animal, School of Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art

Mining the animal is concerned to address the relation between the non-human animal, landscape and people. Specifically, we will explore how the voice of the animal reveals itself, whether through its absence or artistic intervention. Michael Mersinis’ presentation will focus on the silk worm as both an agent and an interlocutor. Following a research project in the small village of Soufli in the north part of Greece, Michael Mersinis examined the animal that was single handedly responsible for the rise and fall of a community that solely relied on its existence. People who worked in the factories of silk are brought forward to weave a complex narrative of economy and ecology in fringe societies. Following on from this, Elizabeth A. Hodson will turn to the work of contemporary artists working in Scotland to explore the transformative and disruptive potential of vocal mimesis in art. Speaking as if animal sheds light on our relationship with the non-human; its symbolic function but also its gendered dynamics. From Butler (1990) to Irigaray (1985), mimesis has been theorized as a platform for subversion. But it can also be a route towards a potential symbiosis with the non-human. Contemporary art practice offers us paths through the climate change crisis in the era of the anthropocene by suggesting a reconfiguration between the human and the non-human animal, an realignment which hears the voice of the non-human animal as equal, autonomous and instructive