Weather Station: a research laboratory exploring links between ecology,place and performance on the shoreline of Morecambe Bay.

气象站是一个以实践为导向的生态性能研究实验。通过建立一个特定地点的花园装置，气象站，我的目标是激发另一种形式的生态意识，立足于对地点和风景的审美反应。这里的关键思想是探索和衡量‘顺其自然’意味着什么，并调查艺术在抵制自然环境日益增长的开发和商品化方面所起的作用。随着气象站的发展和变化，三年多来，欢迎公众，包括当地居民，停下来考虑一下这个地点，享受它的宁静。在气象站，将设计不同形式的现场表演-讲故事、季节性游行、礼物交换和仪式活动-以激发人们对该地方独特生态的认识。这里的目标是利用网站的生态来创造一个由故事、洞察力和记忆组成的人类生态，希望能带来我所说的高度的“地方关怀”意识。气象站着手提出三个研究问题：网站是提高了游客对该地区自然环境的欣赏，还是侵入了该地区的自然环境？它是一个灵感和朝圣的地方，还是一种反常？审美体验能不能让人们对这个地方产生一种新的关爱？在每一种情况下，气象站的目标都是挑战人们的认知和传统。只有时间和观察才能揭示它是整合的还是颠覆性的，或者它是否有能力产生魔力和惊喜-它试图激发的生态/审美体验的关键组成部分。为了监测气象站如何影响我们在那个景观中的体验，设计方法来衡量对工作的反应，以适应不同的受众(随机的和邀请的)和不同的干预(静态的和基于时间的)。例如，当地村民会对在雕塑粘土烤箱里烘焙面包的聚会做出什么反应？当年轻人被邀请建造一片临时微型风向标时，他们会有什么反应？通过一个有规律的活动，然后是反馈和反思的过程，我希望利用气象站来调查基于站点的艺术的能力，揭示一些单靠科学可能无法做到的事情。作为这项研究的结果，希望气象站将成为一个可接受的和重要的焦点，一个通过美学镜头质疑和重新评估生态概念和实践的纽带。

Weather Station is a practice-led research experiment in ecological performance. By building a site-specific garden installation, Weather Station, I aim to stimulate an alternative form of ecological consciousness grounded in an aesthetic response to place and landscape. The key idea here is to explore and measure what it means 'to let something be' and to investigate art's role in resisting the increasing exploitation and commodification of the natural environment. Over three years as Weather Station grows and changes, the public, including local residents, will be welcome to pause and consider the site and enjoy its stillness. At Weather Station, diverse forms of site-based performance - storytelling, seasonal processions, gift exchanges and ritual activities - will be designed to stimulate awareness of the unique ecology of the place. The objective here is to use the ecology of the site to produce a human ecology of stories, insights and memories that will hopefully result in what I call a heightened sense of 'place-bound care'.Weather Station sets out to ask three research questions:Does the site heighten the visitor's appreciation of the area's natural environment, or intrude into it? Is it a place of inspiration and pilgrimage, or an aberration? Can aesthetic experience give rise to a new sense of care for the place, or not?In each case, Weather Station aims to challenge perceptions and conventions. Only time and observation will reveal if it is integrative or disruptive, or if it has the capacity to produce enchantment and surprise - key components in the ecological/aesthetic experience it seeks to provoke.In order to monitor how Weather Station affects our experience of being in that landscape it is essential to design methods of measuring responses to the work that fit varied audiences (random and invited) and varied interventions (static and time-based). For example, how will local villagers respond to a gathering for bread baking in a sculptural clay oven? What reaction will young people have when invited to construct a 'field' of temporary miniature weather vanes? Through a process of regular activity followed by feedback and reflection, I hope to use Weather Station to investigate the capacity of site-based art to reveal something that science alone is perhaps unable to do. As a result of this research, it is hoped that Weather Station will become a receptive and significant focus, a nexus where the very notion and practice of ecology is questioned and reassessed through an aesthetic lens.