COMPOST IS SO HOT
5-21 July 2024
AIRSPACE PROJECTS
Marrickville-based artist Shelley Watters explores compost (ing) as an embodied artistic practice and methodology in COMPOST IS SO HOT, a new body of work spanning photo media, textiles, sculpture, and sound art, inspired by the concept of sympoiesis or “making with” coined by multispecies feminist theorist Donna J. Haraway.
Her practice has been situated at her children’s school in Sydney’s Inner West for much of the last 12 months, the 8 compost bins are the heart of the edible garden and her practice. To understand the temperature fluctuations, she monitored the compost bins between June 23-June 24, generating hundreds of images, recording changes of materiality, temporality, and climate.
“The physicality of composting: my collecting, layering, moving, and turning are actions of intent. The intent to replace, rejuvenate, and invigorate. In our world of extractive capitalism and endless consumption, I position composting as an act of repair.
“COMPOST IS SO HOT (the title) is inspired by a bumper sticker by ecosexuals, performance artists and activists Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens. Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s maintenance art manifesto has also supported my ideas of what art is and can be. So much so that I made myself a “Compost Artist” badge, that I wear while I’m at work in the garden,” says Watters.
COMPOST IS SO HOT asked:
What is the potential of compost and its non-human actants to make art?
What is the potential of compost to generate heat energy, capture carbon and create fertiliser - could it be central to our future?