Ingrid Pollard: Carbon Slowly Turning (2022) (EMPIRE LINES x Invasion Ecology)

In this special episode, EMPIRE LINES returns to Ingrid Pollard’s 2022 exhibition, Carbon Slowly Turning, the first major survey of her career photographing Black experiences beyond the city and urban environments, in the English countryside. It marks the artist’s participation in Invasion Ecology, a season of contemporary land art across South West England in summer 2024, questioning what we mean by ‘native’ and what it means to belong.

Since the 1980s, artist Ingrid Pollard has explored how Black and British identities are socially constructed, often through historical representations of the rural landscape. Born in Georgetown, Guyana, Ingrid draws on English and Caribbean photographic archives, with works crossing the borders of printmaking, sculpture, audio, and video installations. Their practice confronts complex colonial histories, and their legacies in our contemporary lived experiences, especially concerning race, sexuality, and identity.

Curated by the artist and Gilane Tawadros, Carbon Slowly Turning led to Pollard’s shortlisting for the Turner Prize 2022. From its iteration at the Turner Contemporary in Margate, Ingrid exposes the pre-Windrush propaganda films beneath works like Bow Down and Very Low -123 (2021), her plural influences from Maya Angelou to Muhammad Ali, and playing on popular culture with works in the Self Evident series (1992). As a Stuart Hall Associate Fellow at the University of Sussex, and with a PhD-by-publication, the artist discusses the role of research in her media-based practice. Finally, Ingrid opens her archive of depictions of African figures 'hidden in plain sight' in English towns and villages - from classical portraiture, to ‘Black Boy’ pub signs.

Ingrid Pollard: Carbon Slowly Turning ran at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, the Turner Contemporary in Margate, and Tate Liverpool, throughout 2022. The exhibition was supported by the Freelands Foundation and Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, and the episode first released as part of EMPIRE LINES at 50.

Invasion Ecology is co-curated by Jelena Sofronijevic for Radical Ecology, and Vashti Cassinelli at Southcombe Barn, an arts space and gardens on Dartmoor. The central group exhibition, featuring Ingrid Pollard, Iman Datoo, Hanna Tuulikki, Ashish Ghadiali, Fern Leigh Albert, and Ashanti Hare, runs from 1 June to 10 August 2024.

The wider programme includes anti-colonial talks and workshops with exhibiting artists, writers, researchers, and gardeners, reimagining more empathic connections between humans, plants, animals, and landscapes. Ingrid will join EMPIRE LINES in conversation with Corinne Fowler, Professor of Colonialism and Heritage in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, Director of Colonial Countryside: National Trust Houses Reinterpreted, and author of Our Island Stories: Country Walks through Colonial Britain (2024), on 18 July 2024.

For more information, follow ⁠⁠Radical Ecology⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Southcombe Barn⁠⁠ on social media, and visit: ⁠radicalecology.earth/events/invasion-ecology-exhibition⁠. You can also listen to the ⁠⁠EMPIRE LINES x Invasion Ecology Spotify playlist⁠⁠, for episodes with Paul Gilroy, Lubaina Himid, Johny Pitts, and Imani Jacqueline Brown, plus partners from the University of Exeter, KARST, CAST, and the Eden Project in Cornwall.

Ingrid Pollard’s Three Drops of Blood (2022), commissioned by talking on corners (Dr Ella S. Mills and Lorna Rose), also explores representations of ferns, botany, and folk traditions in Devon’s historic lace-making industry. First exhibited at Thelma Hubert Gallery in Honiton, it is now part of the permanent collection of The Box in Plymouth, where it will be displayed from 19 October 2024.

SOUNDS: no title, Ashish Ghadiali (2024).

PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.

Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: instagram.com/empirelinespodcast

And Twitter: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936

Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines