Back to Earth

As part of  Back to Earth, artist, yogi and doula Tabita Rezaire is developing AMAKABA, a centre for the arts and science of the earth, the body and sky, combining spiritual and ancestral philosophy with an agroecological cacao farm and yoga centre. In Rezaire’s words, “AMAKABA is a vision for a space where one can connect with a journey into the depths of themselves, guided by the wisdom of the Amazonian forest… The ambition is to contribute to a more conscious and responsible way of living and being, and to respond creatively to the many challenges we face.” Serpentine has teamed up with WePresent on Groundwork, a series of monthly deep dives into Back to Earth projects which will unfold between January and May 2021, presented in support of artists’ chosen NGOs and organisations. Donations via this link contribute to supporting Karrabing’s Art Residency for Ancestors project, and will be matched by WePresent.

Find out more here. Read about AMAKABA on WePresent here.

Karrabing Film Collective  is developing  The Family, a new film commission and cross-artforms project aimed at enhancing ancestral Emmi narratives about the southern coastal region of the Anson Bay (Northern Territories, Australia), and specifically about the ecologically fragile Cape Ford region. The ultimate goal of the project is the creation of a cultural heritage area. Serpentine has teamed up with WePresent on  Groundwork, a series of monthly deep dives into  Back to Earth projects which will unfold between January and May 2021, presented in support of artists’ chosen NGOs and organisations. Donations via this link contribute to supporting Karrabing’s Art Residency for Ancestors project, and will be matched by WePresent.

Find out more here. Read Karrabing’s feature on WePresent here.

Yoko Ono’s contribution to  Back to Earth  brings this simple declaration of love for our planet, our home, our sustenance and our mother to billboards across the UK.

More info here.

static range is a multi-disciplinary and multi-limbed project using a real-life spy-story in the Indian Himalayas as a springboard for speculations and reflections about invisibility, leakages, spiritual entanglements, nuclear culture, socio-political marginalisation and icarian delusions. This series of transmissions that make up ‘static range’, include an adapted stamp, letters, an animation, music, embroidery, healing, planting and a performance installation. Serpentine has teamed up with WePresent on  Groundwork, a series of monthly deep dives into  Back to Earth projects which will unfold between January and May 2021, presented in support of artists’ chosen NGOs and organisations. Himali Singh Soin has nominated the non-profit Live to Love, and donations via this link will be matched by WePresent.

More info here. Click here to read Himali Singh Soin’s WePresent feature.

Vivienne Westwood’s SWITCH campaign is a call to switch to green energy supplier. Serpentine has teamed up with WePresent on  Groundwork, a series of monthly deep dives into  Back to Earth projects which will unfold between January and May 2021, presented in support of artists’ chosen NGOs and organisations. Vivienne Westwood has selected Cool Earth as its chosen charity. Donations made via this link will be doubled by WePresent.

Find out more here, or read Westwood’s WePresent feature here.

“I want to make an artwork for pollinators – not about them” –Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg.

More info here.

As part of Back to Earth, artist Tai Shani is developing Untitled Hieroglyphs, a film and sound art project emerging from the artist’s research into psychedelics, feminism and myth and unfolding throughout 2021.

Find out more here.

In its completed version, forthcoming in late 2021,  Heavens will be a moving-image work and installation. Created using planetarium projection methods to overlay planetary footage with deep sea imagery, Heavens looks at deep space to see deep into the ocean, or perhaps the other way around. A multi-channel sound installation will form a choir of voices (human and non), unraveling a creation myth based on the hypothesis of a cosmic cause to the Cambrian explosion. Serpentine has teamed up with WePresent on  Groundwork, a series of monthly deep dives into  Back to Earth projects which will unfold between January and May 2021, presented in support of artists’ chosen NGOs and organisations. For the first issue of  Groundwork, Revital Cohen & Tuur Van Balen have opened up the process of making  Heavens  through interviews, archival images and initial audiovisual experiments. The artists have nominated the Climate Emergency Fund as their chosen charity.

Click here for more information. Read Cohen & Van Balen’s WePresent feature here. Donations to the Climate Emergency Fund via this link will be matched by WePresent.

Metabolic Selves is an initiative devised by students of the Royal College of Art’s School of Architecture studio ADS3: Refuse Trespassing Our Bodies, on the occasion of Back to Earth. Metabolic Selves rethinks our relationships to metabolism, and those microscopic agents and materials—from microplastics through to formaldehyde—that traverse our bodies and our environments as we traverse them.

Find out more here.

To See The Forest Standing is an ongoing research-based artwork and campaign by Maria Thereza Alves to bring awareness to the protection, care and preservation of the forest by the AMAAIAC, the Association of the Movement of Indigenous Agroforestry Agents of the State of Acre, Brazil, as well as the threats to this stewardship posed by the aggressive extractive activities of agrobusiness and government alike.

Find out more here.

Drawing on her own Colombian-American roots, multidisciplinary artist Carolina Caycedo is researching community-led alternative energy production across the Americas. The basis of her campaign for Back to Earth is her long-running investigation into human interaction with rivers, from access to clean water supplies to toxicity levels and the impact of dams.

Find out more here.

#CreateArtForEarth campaign kicks off with an open call for anyone to submit art or messages addressing climate justice and post them to social media using the hashtag #CreateArtForEarth. Submissions can be in any form: paintings, photographs, sculptures, images, texts, poems, symbols, or any other visual representation that carries an environmental message. Find out more on our Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. During this period of uncertainty and social distancing, while streets are empty and in person demonstrations are suspended, #CreateArtForEarth is a call to make protest visible and create art that reflects our mutual commitment to stop the climate crisis and protect our planet.

Find out more here.

Earth Perspectives, a new participatory artwork by Olafur Eliasson launched on Earth Day, Wednesday 22 April 2020, as part of Back to Earth. Olafur Eliasson’s new work, Earth Perspectives encapsulates how maps, space, and the earth itself are human constructs, which we have the power to see from other perspectives, whether individually or collectively.

Find out more here.