Repairing with Lichen
Repairing with Lichen will explore notions around micro-rewilding in ‘the city’ from a lichen-eye view to reimagine nature in the city.
This project broadly center’s on lichen as a role model and starting point to consider how nature, and interspecies communities in endangered landscapes, can survive and thrive within the Hague, where space is limited and ‘nature’ controlled. The project will consider the city from a lichen-eye view and search for modes of micro-rewilding. The project will search for the ‘nature holes’ in the city; the places least likely to have a connection with lichen, and use these as propositional ignition sites for micro-rewilding in the city.
Lichen, as a self-sufficient and symbiotic community of fungus, algae and bacteria, are a model for collaboration and speak to a way of moving forward that looks to interdisciplinarity, partnerships and collaborations between species, for a more-than-human greater good of all. Lichen occupy spaces where plants struggle, such as stones, walls and roof tiles. They absorb atmospheric pollutants such as NO2, SO2, heavy metals and are interspecies biomonitors and witnesses to climate change.
The outcome of this research will be an experimental community driven gorilla strategy for micro-rewilding, led by lichen. It will have a physical element, such as a material experiments and intervention to create bio receptive carriers to promote lichen growth, and a parallel digital/ online avatar of a ‘least natural sites’, where visitors can experience the micro-rewilding and co-build a rewilding over time: showing its full potential and impact.
Furthermore, the project will experiment with biomonitor markers, bio-receptive materials , VR timelapses, simulation and gamification .
Jury Statement
The jury decided to select Penelope Cain as a winner of the Repairing the Present Fellowship at Regional S+T+ARTS Centre In4Art, because the project Repairing with Lichen proposes a novel and innovative way to merge the physical with the virtual world in order to engage people to their direct urban environments. The project ‘Repairing with Lichen’ investigates a new layer of imaging the city through the lens of one species: the lichen. It addresses sustainability challenges related to biodiversity within cities, with new appreciation for existing flora, but also through monitoring the carbon uptake and nitrogen sequestration. By introducing the concept of micro rewilding in the ‘least natural sites’ of the city, Penelope proposes a project which allows for extensive public involvement and scaling throughout cities and urban areas everywhere. The jury sees that the potential impact of this project is enormous, since the number of surfaces where it can be applied is huge. Through both physical interventions and digital storytelling, the project aims to realize a mental model shift where lichen can be seen as positive contributors to city life instead of a form of decay.
About Penelope Cain
Penelope Cain works with landscape in its widest definition. In particular the colonised, extracted and transformed landscapes of the Anthropocene and the manifest marks of humans on the land. Informed by her research science background, Cain’s art practice is located interstitially between scientific knowledge and unearthing connective untold narratives in the world; using video, installation, objects, flags, text, public participation in storytellings about the lands of the Anthropocene.
Cain has a MFA and a background in biological science. She was awarded with the Fauvette Loureiro Travelling Scholarship. Her work has been exhibited in commissioned and curated exhibitions nationally and internationally in Brazil, Britain, Australia, Taiwan, China and Korea, and has an upcoming commission for SACO Biennale, Chile (2023).
More about the project
Exploring notions around micro-rewilding in ‘the city’ from a lichen-eye view.
Lichen, as a self-sufficient and symbiotic community of fungus, algae and bacteria, are a model for collaboration and speak to a way of moving forward that looks to interdisciplinarity, partnerships and collaborations between species, for a more-than-human greater good of all. Lichen occupy spaces where plants struggle, such as stones, walls and roof tiles. They absorb atmospheric pollutants such as NO2, SO2, heavy metals and are interspecies biomonitors and witnesses to climate change.
This project broadly centres on lichen as a role model and starting point to consider how nature can survive and thrive within the Hague, where space is limited and ‘nature’ controlled. The project will consider the city from a lichen-eye view and search for modes of micro-rewilding.
This will be undertaken by working with available datasets through Witteveen+Bos, and with non-traditional data, such as bee counts, community pollinator and wildflower counts, atmospheric monitoring, in addition to regional scientific investigations, such as lichen data monitoring and urban material science research. The project will search for the ‘nature holes’ in the city; the places least likely to have a connection with lichen, and use these as propositional ignition sites for micro-rewilding in the city.
The outcome of this research will be an experimental strategy for micro-rewilding, led by lichen. It will have a physical element, such as a material intervention to promote lichen growth, and a parallel digital/ online avatar of a site for micro-rewilding, where visitors can co-build, and co-imagine a rewilding.
Acknowledgements
This project Repairing with Lichen is being conducted as part of the Repairing the Present S+T+ARTS Regional Centers project.
The S+T+ARTS residency artist is Penelope Cain. The fellowship partner is Wittveen +Bos.
This project has received funding from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement LC01641664