In Mountain Shadows: A Practice of Community Aesthesis Nearing Climate Emergency

Abstract

‘In Mountain Shadows’’ practice-led doctorate investigates community aesthesis within climate emergencies through a spatial arts community practice while living in the East Iceland town of Seyðisfjörður. The research critically reflects on my ethical approach to how it curates community festivals and restores civic houses in the face of climate emergencies. My ‘nearing’ methodology, adapted from Jane Rendell’s critical spatial practice of site- writing-reviewing, invites others into methods I term ‘alias-atlasing’ for self-reviewing one’s practices in relation to the otherness of ‘nature’ or what this research terms a ‘community aesthesis’. A range of methods materializes through poetic writing, photo-essaying, photography, printmaking, sound recordings, and live camera feeds to provide me with critical-ethical reflection on my curatorial community events. As a spatial designer responsible for creating large-scale festivals, this research engages in the negative impacts and dangers of monumentalizing or memorializing local places. Herðubreið, community house; List í ljósi, annual light festival; and Gamla Bakarí ruin, are my creative sites mapping my practice living within climate emergency. My first-hand experience of the large-scale landslide that hit the town of Seyðisfjörður in December 2020, understands how this community lives on while being supported by my practice in times of crisis.