Natassja Simensky (UCL) - 2020-21 Students

Leaky Transmissions: (Im)material cultures of planetary indebtedness

This project takes the proposition of an ‘archaeology of the present’ from contemporary archaeology, as a means to interrogate the co-production of knowledge and material culture in the field of contemporary art. Contributing new and relevant knowledge to discussions within the arts, the project demands practitioners look beyond academic theory to find new ways to engage and impact place-specific contexts. It operates at the intersection between disciplines, each illuminating the other.

Through interdisciplinary enquiry, I will produce text, musical composition, place-specific performance, moving-image, exhibitions, and interventions. By working ‘in the field’, I aim to make experiential the multifaceted influences governing the Blackwater Estuary, Essex, highlighting current discourses of energy production and tacit forms of knowledge that inhabit the Estuary.