Eileen White
About
Eileen White is a UK artist, based in Winchester, Hampshire. She graduated from Goldsmiths College, University of London, with a BA in Fine Art Textiles and is now studying for a postgraduate Master's Degree in Print at the Royal College of Art.
While at the Royal College of Art, she was awarded a Distinction for her Critical and Historical Studies dissertation, titled 'Chorography, The analogue print as a Site for Re-imagination', This body of research was a theoretical attempt to create an alternative, tactile and authentic way of mapping a relationship to place by exploring wider relationships, perspectives and entanglements to time, space and materials.
Her practice is multi-disciplinary and reflects her interest in sustainability, materials, science and history by responding to historic landscapes in the broadest sense, using a variety of analogue and alternative photographic processes alongside bookmaking.
Her work at the Royal College of Art was created in response to a residency at the Chelsea Physic Garden, unearthing hidden stories and relationships to the wider environment. Her work is linked to a deep concern for Nature and Memory as well as exploring the materiality of print and lens-based media.
She has exhibited in many galleries as well as in heritage and museum organisations, such as English Heritage and The National Trust. Her publications are held in collections both in the UK and abroad.
Recent exhibitions include:
- ‘The 3RD-Floor’, Royal College of Art, London. November 2022
- ‘Nature’s Endurance’, Artworks, The Everybody School of Art, Halifax. March 2023 - May 2023
- ‘Beyond Silver’, London Alternative Photographic Collective, The Hive, Birmingham. March - April 2023
- ‘Twofold’, Southwark Park Galleries, London. March 2023
- ‘WAAITT’, Easter Gallery, Hackney, London. April 2023
- ‘BRINK’, 2030 Collective, Hanger Gallery, Royal College of Art, London. May 2023
Upcoming:
- ‘PhotoFrome’, Frome Library, Somerset. 24 June - 12 July 2023
- 'RCA2023' Graduate Show, The Truman Brewery, London. 13 - 16 July 2023
Eileen will be teaching photographic workshops as part of The Sustainable Darkroom instagram.com/sustainabledarkroom and Chelsea Physic Garden https://www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk/visit/whats-on/ later this year, as well as exhibiting work as part of The Yard Studios Open in Winchester, instagram.com/the_yard-studios
Statement
'Critters - human and not - become with each other, compose and decompose each other, in every scale and register of time and stuff in sympoietic tangling, in ecological, evolutionary, developmental, earthly, worlding and unworlding'.
Donna J. Haraway.
A garden opens up a space with new forms of attention, sensitivity and thought, unearthing a connection and longing to care more about the Earth. There is an awareness of time passing, of loss and rebirth, whilst witnessing our entanglements to Place, History and impact on Nature.
‘What is my role as an artist in the age of the Anthropocene?’
My recent work has been a response to The Chelsea Physic Garden, a 350-year-old garden set up by apothecaries in London. By using an ethical and caring framework I have instigated ways of thinking about relationships with the Earth that are less environmentally destructive. This has enabled the creation of a personal collection of material and visual mappings.
Using alternative photographic processes which are gentle, slow and uncalibrated, opens up opportunities to pay attention. Growing and making my own replacement darkroom chemicals, degrading waste into fertiliser or reusing consumer waste as alternative substrates, ensures there is collaborative reciprocity, where the work unfurls itself in relation to the materials, light and seasons. My images become photographic ‘skins’, witnesses to the constant ebb and flow of a place, as well as my experience of being there.
My kitchen, the hushed space of the darkroom and the propagating area in the garden are all hidden places where I can explore a different way of image-making that isn’t purely representational. Choosing to make work in this careful and slow way, enables an exploration of time through an alchemy of actions, which gives life to discarded objects and entices the viewer into another world.
Transmutation 1
Transmutation 1 - 2023
The propagation area at the Chelsea Physic Garden, is a hidden space away from the public’s gaze, but underpins the garden in terms of importance. It is where the plants are propagated and nurtured, and where the weeds and dead matter are transformed into life-giving compost. This is then fed, turned and reintroduced into the garden and wider biosphere.
Transmutation 1 along with Propagation are two companion pieces that show different aspects of this part of the garden. It is where I based my portable studio during my years residency.
It was a place to pay attention.
Using an antique field camera dating back to 1850, a time of great horticultural importance, due to the adventurous expeditions of plant hunters to various parts of the world, I quietly and slowly photographed in and around this area of the garden.
Using hand-coated glass slides which I made from old charity shop finds and coated with liquid emulsion, images were transformed in the darkroom using a homemade compost developer. The irregularities of the materials, as well as the terroir of the landscape specific to this place, were embedded onto the surface of the glass.
Converting consumer waste in the form of food or photographic packaging into alternative light-sensitive substrates, before ‘stitching’ them together to create larger pieces, has been a mediative labour of love and reparation. The work carries these marks of making, with many inconsistencies, imperfections and accidents visible. It is a deliberate attempt to imbue the work with material agency and entanglements with the non-human. A leaning towards symbiosis, reciprocity and exchange.
Medium: medium format dry plate photography, Silver Gelatin coated, collaged recycled waste/photographic packaging, plant developer
Size: 190 x 120 cm
Propagation
Medium: medium format dry plate photography, Silver Gelatin coated, collaged recycled waste/food packaging, plant developer
Size: 190 x 120 cm
Sympoiesis 1
‘Sympoiesis 1' is an unframed large-scale, silver gelatin print created using a process called Phytography, invented by Karel Doing. It harnesses the inner chemistry of plants and works through direct contact. This way of working enables a physical relationship to combine with the chemical agency of materials, to create an indexical form of inscription. Exploring the concept of interconnectedness and the need to address complex environmental and social issues, this work embraces multidisciplinarity whilst recognising the agency of non-human entities,
This work is a response to current research during a residency at the Chelsea Physic Garden.
‘Sympoiesis’ is a simple word; it means ‘making with.’ Nothing makes itself; nothing is really autopoietic or self-organising.’ Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), p. 58.
Medium: Silver gelatin print, fibre-based paper, homemade compost developer.
Size: 130 x 170 cm
The Engine Room
Medium: Layered silver gelatin prints, plant developer, recycled food and medicine packaging, various sizes, table.
Size: 125 x 60 x 90 cm
Entanglements
'Entanglements' 2023
As part of my residency at the Chelsea Physic Garden, I explored specific plants that have connections to well-being, memory and erasure. This culminated in the making of a publication ‘Entanglements’, a handmade archive clamshell box containing a recycled medical packet, handprinted with an image of snowdrops growing in the garden. The public information leaflet details this plant's connections to folklore, storytelling, history and modern-day pharmaceuticals. Galantamine from the snowdrop bulb is now, albeit synthesised, the main ingredient in the Alzheimers drug Radazyne.
Exhibited at 'TwoFold', Dilston Gallery, Southwark Park Gallery, London. 25 - 26 March 2023
‘PhotoFrome’, Frome Library Somerset, 24 June - 12 July 2023
Medium: Hand-made cloth bound and letterpress printed archival box. Recycled paracetamol box, printed with Silver Gelatin photograph
Size: 15 x 10 x 2.5 cm
The extent to which to us and the it slip slide into each other
Medium: Collaged silver gelatin prints, plant developer.
Size: 65 X 125 cm
Transmutation- Deconstruction 4, 5 & 6
One homemade developer was used to create these three large-scale prints. The slow oxidisation and depletion in the strength of the plant matter produced different tones, stains and marks on each print. These continued to change over the course of the next two weeks, before 'settling'.
Medium: Silver Gelatin prints x 3, food waste developer
Size: 130 x 170 cm
Sponsors
The Chelsea Physic Garden
Many thanks for all the support during this residency, especially Anneka Gonzalez and The Education Team.