Phenology out of joint: An investigation into seasonality as a model for arts practice

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This research will explore how the concept of seasonality can be applied and understood using arts practice in combination with Phenology; the study of natural processes that make up the different seasons, ie. migration, emergence, growth, and decay. Using autoethnographic writing and practice- based methods including performance, object making and video work, I will explore how art can embody the seasons beyond mere representation.This PhD, therefore, seeks to answer the following research questions:How does seasonality work to construct a sense of place and time? How can art practice embody the concept of seasonality and as a method, work with seasonal variability; ultimately reducing contribution to anthropogenic climate change?Now that popular science has embedded the notion of human made climate-change into public consciousness (Latour, 2017; Stengers, 2015) how can arts practice disrupt current understandings of the four-season framework in the UK, creating a new sense of embodying time?Building on the work of Delia Hannah A Year Without a Winter (2018), I will focus on lived time within environmental philosophy, by questioning the existing framework of the four seasons. I will develop an exhibition using the Gregorian calendar model, partially inspired by the exhibition Garden of Six Seasons (2020) which explored Nepali systems of counting time.The research will be composed of eight different seasonal periods over two years of the PhD, following the four seasons in the UK - a temperate maritime climate characterised by cool winters and warm summers - leaving 6 months for planning either side, and 6 months for concluding the written research and finalising artworks and exhibitions. The research will respond to the uncertainty of seasonal variations - for example, a winter exhibition in summer. This will include researching how rhythms of animal and plant life have the capacity to be thrown out of sequence (Bastian 2017) representing a phenology out of joint, and investigating how these phenomena further affect human relationships to timekeeping.