Matthew Verdon
“my work deals with the connection of humans and nature…”
Interview by Simek Shropshire
Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? Where did you study?
I make work around the relationships that exist between humans and nature, particularly in relation to horticulture, earth science and climatology. It is not only these systems themselves that interest me but also the related cultural subsystems and technologies that sit alongside and within them. My practice revolves around a strong interest in materiality with a great deal of consideration put into the selection of each constituent element and how they interact.
I studied agricultural science at university in Australia before working as an agronomist for several years. Whilst my interests moved away from agriculture for a while, towards the end of art college this interest returned and I was able to integrate previous professional knowledge and experience within my art practice. I undertook a BA Fine Art at Chelsea and then an MA Fine Art at Goldsmiths.
Your practice is rooted in considerations of ecology and anthropology. What lead you to these two particular disciplines?
My background in agricultural science was focused on broadacre farming of cotton and wheat. This involved the study of plant growth and development as well as soil analysis and experimental field trials. Here there was a dynamic consideration of not only the crop, but also the relationships with its immediate environment and its management practices. This study of how one thing affects another in the natural world was one of the catalysts to thinking ecologically. Although diametrically opposed to such an interventionist practice as farming, growing up in proximity to the oldest tropical rainforest in the world, the Daintree, also had an early and lasting impact with its complex biodiversity and sheer beauty. However my use of the term ecology in relation to the practice is in an expanded sense where it not only encompasses natural systems, but also incorporates the external relationships between nature and other elements such as social and ethical frameworks. I think any interpretation of nature today can’t be separated from these. I take the view that all things are connected either directly or indirectly, and any change in something will have a knock-on effect on others.
My consideration of anthropology is more notional than referential in that I see the technologies used today in agricultural production and ecological management as representative of a particular place in time and particular belief systems, much in the same way that objects in museum collections refer to their makers, eras and uses. For example, a solar photovoltaic panel available today can be viewed as a device that represents a level of technological development at our cultural and historical moment. In the future these will be seen to be rather luddite compared to much more efficient versions that are yet be developed and how ubiquitous they will hopefully become.
How does your practice investigate and reinterpret canonical representations of both art history and natural history?
As my work deals with the connection of humans and nature, I see it has something of a relationship to Dutch 17th century flower paintings by the likes of Ambrosius Bosschaert and Rachel Ruysch amongst others. These works were bunches of flowers painted in scientific detail, often with insects or small animals included. They featured groupings of flowers from different seasons that would not have bloomed simultaneously, thereby being abstract representations of a familiar botanical subject. They also frequently featured a piece of rotting fruit or a dying flower as a reminder of the brevity of life. These paintings capture the diversity and abundance of nature whilst also indicating that despite human attempts, the cycles of nature will ultimately predominate. Whilst not being moralistic or symbolic, my work also reflects upon similar natural cycles and their consequences. The relationship between the subject matter of these paintings and their boom in production due to Dutch economic prosperity based on global trade at the time is also of relevance.
There is perhaps a re-interpreting and updating in my work of the landscape tradition in art. Whilst it shares a fascination with the aesthetic beauty of nature, it differs from the sublimity and remoteness of the Romanticism of Caspar David Friedrich or the notions of ownership inherent in 18th century British landscapes, instead highlighting symbiosis, possibility and co-existence. One way of looking at this is that instead of being a painting of a landscape hanging in a museum, as well as an interest in what is explicitly and inexplicitly depicted, I attempt to take into account what it is made of, how it is displayed and how the structure that houses it is maintained. Affinities could be made with Systems Art of the 1970’s such as the sculptural work of Hans Haacke. These artists attempted to make work that responded to the world beyond the gallery walls via the creation of stable, on-going relationships between organic and non-organic systems. Sharing a common interest in experimentation and process, my work additionally focuses on instability, material and context with regards to environmental variables and present day technologies.
Natural history museums have specific ways of handling objects and specimens through a variety of display structures and preservation techniques. How something is presented affects how it is interpreted whilst how it is stored denotes something about how its value is perceived. It is these structures and protocols that determine what the collection artefact is today so they for me are part of the expanded ecology of an object. This also extends to the vital infrastructures that support them such as climate control, electricity and plumbing, in much the same way that plants grown in large greenhouses are dependent on these same variables.
Clouds must have weight because water has weight, 2019
Installation view of Vestigial Traits and Evolutionary Spandrels, Kelder Projects, 2019
You’ve stated that the choice of materials used in your works “becomes of major importance, namely in their pragmatic functions, contexts, histories, and systemic usages.” How do considerations of “functions, contexts, histories, and systemic usages” of a material affect your choice of said material?
This acts on multiple levels in my practice.
Firstly, the materials used in the works are of vital importance. Be it a particular type of weatherproof paint or shade cloth that both protect from the intensity of the sun, the material is always used in a way that refers to its functional use in the outside world, either by enhancing or contradicting. By extracting a material from its usual function, its properties can be examined and played with in novel ways. This could be by dissecting, sculpturally mis-using or juxtaposing with seemingly unrelated entities to experimentally queer the original.
Secondly, materials may also be found objects with a provenance, thereby having an embedded narrative around where or how they were previously used. Extending this relative to ideas of a circular economy where outputs become inputs in an attempt to reduce material footprints, some works “borrow” components from the site in which they are constructed or installed. After the work or installation has been dismantled, the component can return to its original function.
And thirdly, historical narratives also play a part. For example, a recent work featured artificial tulips in a tulipiere made of hemp seeds. Originating in Central Asia, the tulip was first cultivated in Turkey. When European diplomats began visiting the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century they noticed the highly prized flower. It was then rapidly introduced into Western Europe, particularly in the Netherlands. Occurring at the same time as the birth of mercantile capitalism, the tulip became a coveted luxury item. Tulip bulbs were traded as a commodity, resulting in a speculative futures trading frenzy in the 1630s known as Tulipmania. People made and lost fortunes overnight with no bulbs actually exchanging hands. At the time the price of a single tulip bulb could be as much as a house. Although short lived, this was the world’s first economic bubble. A similar situation happened in the 1990’s with the dotcom bubble where excessive financial speculation in internet companies caused the market to crash. Many companies went bust but a few like Amazon survived. Stories such as these are often inherent in the materials I work with.
Hyperthermia includes a segment that focuses on how display cases in a museum are regulated through climate control in order to prolong the lifespans of the objects housed within them. This reminded me of your Clouds must have weight because water has weight (2019), for you use grow lights that are controlled by an algorithm based on the daily changes in the share prices of cloud data storage providers on tomato plants. Does human regulation of ecological microcosms factor into the conception and formation of your works?
Indeed it does, particularly with regards to human activities that attempt to not only regulate but also subvert or control. I’m curious about processes that attempt to maintain homeostasis given that growth, decay, adaptation and evolution are all intrinsic to natural systems. I approach the work with a view of nature and culture that is completely entangled, where they are dependent upon each other. I would question if there is even any boundary between the two anymore. For example a national park or wildlife reserve today can only exist as the result of ongoing programs of legislation and financing as well as ecological processes. Nature (or whatever the term means these days) could exist without us, but there is also a lot that culture can do to repair the damage that has been inflicted on the planet. Is it possible that one day we might be able to reach a win-win situation where both benefit, where nature and culture simultaneously regulate each other in mutually beneficial ways?
It’s not just human regulation of systems that factor in to the work, but also non-human regulation such as algorithms, weather systems or feedback loops. Subsequently this raises the question of who or what is in control, meaning either what element of a society makes the decisions on what is regulated and how, or it might mean that we are in fact regulated by these non-human entities. It is about how one thing affects another, how one entity feeds off on another, how one structure determines another. For me the circulatory and regulatory processes within complex systems are visually represented by the vast, omnipresent and almost incomprehensible networks of conduits, pipes and wires of infrastructure. And it is ultimately these physical networks and their maintenance that enable and support.
These two differing forms of regulation are exemplified by the works you mention, the lifespan of museum artefacts being entirely dependent on human intervention while the hydroponically grown tomato plants function as a network of connections that may actually be beyond human regulation.
Hyperthermia (still) 2017
Des Esseintes' Tortoise, 2017
Lightness 3, 2020
Semper sativa, 2019
Air conditioner compressor, 2020
Tell us a bit about how you spend your day / studio routine? What is your studio like?
My studio practice has no routine at all and for me that’s a beneficial thing on multiple levels. When in the studio, around 50% of the time is spent on research and the remainder on experimenting and making. My studio layout is constantly changing with furniture and artworks moving around depending on what I’m working on. Aside from numerous sculptures in various stages of completion, it contains shelving racks storing works, materials, books and boxed up climate control devices. The shelves also presently house a hydroponic system growing chillies to research variables such as plant variety, flavour and energy usage. And I get the bonus of homegrown chillies once the research is done. There is usually a crop of some sort or other growing regardless of the season outside, past set-ups have grown wheat, tomatoes, basil, lettuce and watercress at differing times. Some of these systems have ended up as artworks, others have been learning experiences.
Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?
I am currently working on a publication that relates to an exhibition that took place in 2019 at Kelder Projects in London. The book takes the form of an appendix to the show, focusing on the materials used in the works rather than the works themselves. It examines through found texts and collaged images how one constituent material relates to another. It is based on anthropologist Marilyn Strathern’s idea of “post-plurality” where infinity extends both outwards (to what other things does something relate) and inwards (of what other things is something composed), in an attempt to model the complexity of a hydroponic system.
I am also working on an evolving project that began with a video about a flooding incident that happened at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in 2017, the Hall of Mirrors featured in the 1961 film “Last Year at Marienbad” and plant fossils from the Carboniferous period 300 million years ago. The project also includes a series of clay sculptures that hybridise enlarged seeds of staple crops like wheat, corn and rice and ancient Greek storage vessels. The next stage is a large floor based hydroponic system derived from baroque garden design that re-interprets and extends the elements contained in the video and sculptures. Whilst each part of the project is a work in its own right, they come together to form a system of cross references and symbiotic exchanges relating to past and future seed technologies and the possibilities of sculpture.
All images are courtesy of the artist
Date of publication: 02/09/20
