Search results

One of the main obstacles to the implementation of Conservation Agriculture (CA) in subSaharan Africa is the priority given to using crop residues as cattle feed rather than mulching material. As documented in past projects (e.g. CA-SARD, CA2Africa, ABACO), in this way the CA approach will not reach its full potential - particularly in countries with a limited biomass production due to climatic conditions. To identify pathways for enabling an implementation of CA that is not in conflict with other goals of farmers' livelihoods (e.g. livestock farming), we used a transformative learning approach with farmers and other stakeholders in Laikipia County (Kenya). The learning elements comprised: a timeline that encompasses the past promotion activities; stakeholder mapping which highlights the various stakeholders involved and their influence; non-scripted participatory videos filmed by the stakeholders themselves that show the farming system from different perspectives; focus group discussions structured by the Qualitative expert Assessment Tool for CA adoption in Africa (QAToCA). Challenges to CA adoption that were jointly identified include the competition for fodder, a lack of financial resources to get started with CA. There are knowledge gaps on proper application of CA equipment, on the fodder production and conservation options and, lastly, on sustainable crop-livestock production systems. Furthermore, farmers feel disconnected from existing governmental support. However, our findings highlight solutions which enable feeding the soil "and" feeding the cow. Some farmers already have started to grow forages on their farms in order to reduce dependence on crop residues as a feeding source – an approach which had not been promoted during past projects. This shows the importance of an enabling environment provided by government programs which supports long-term extension efforts combined with farmers' willingness to jointly learn towards a more sustainable agriculture. On farms where both systems (CA and conventional) are practised, women play an important role by experimenting with CA practices, thereby realising promising results in terms of yield and drought resilience. Furthermore, our findings underline the need for a long-term monitoring of innovation processes which is often not possible within short-term term research projects and promotion programs.

Work shown as part of 'Mind Rhymes', curated by Tom Benson at Hidde van Seggelen Gallery, London Mind Rhymes Curated by Tom Benson 24 July – 31 August 2013 This show is about ideas, likes and dislikes. And as far as we can know anything about anyone else, it's dependant on how much we can put ourselves in the place of the other, of their likes and dislikes. It's more or less a form of collaboration. Tom Benson: So, two characters in the background would be Marcel Duchamp and John Cage. John Cage having written a piece of music called Music for Marcel Duchamp for a film by Hans Richter, with a little excerpt in it on Duchamp. It was one of the very, very early prepared piano pieces by Cage and it's a relatively short piece, but in it. I've thought for a long time that it encapsulates a particular quality, which is a quality of thought happening rather than having happened. There are points, in the way that the rhythm is built up and held, where it hovers before some sort of direction is taken. I didn't think to look up very much about the piece when I first heard it, but when I finally did, years later, I was surprised to discover that it was one of the first pieces that Cage had written where he deliberately tried to explore silence in a structured way. So there are bars of silence and bars of sound. These gaps, or these spaces, were spaces that I felt somehow offered me the ability to enter into the piece with my own thinking. Spaces for thought, if you will, within the music, rather than a wall of sound that is all-invading. And also with Cage, as we know, there is an interest in the I Ching and various strategies that were used to generate musical compositions that would remove him to some extent from a more authoritative position of his own subjectivity. The idea of the grid—I was struggling with how to bring a number of disparate works together into a space and give them the same space. It was a question of how to address the space as well as the works within it, in a subtle but determined way. I was thinking about devising a band system, so there would be three bands, a tripartite division running horizontally around the space. It could be black, white, grey, whatever. It would give me different tiers to include works that could exist above, along side, in parallel, askance from other works. But I thought that that would almost be too crude. A much, much simpler way was just a very lightly drawn, using a 4H pencil, linear grid that would run across all the wall surfaces from floor to ceiling, that would give a more planular space, a more extensive space, so that it didn't feel—because of the proportion, because it's 50 centimetres across every facet of the space—it wouldn't feel like, 'that's at the top, and that's at the bottom'. Just, 'it's located on the grid'. It equalises the space. For the name of the show, I was first thinking along the lines of 'rhyme and reason', rather than 'rhyme or reason', to include the analytic and conceptual as well as the emotive and the subjective. Because it seems to me that some of the most interesting works do that - however obdurate they might be, there is a sort of feeling of a mind at work, the mind that brought that thing into existence. But in having a dialogue with so many artists about their work and realising that I was being shown things I wouldn't have thought about otherwise, and also in being slightly worried that 'rhyme and reason' sounded almost too clear and understandable. to come across this term 'mind rhyme'—which does exist—I thought was fantastic, because it included both the conceptual and the poetic, the rhyme and the reason, but in a much more interesting way. A mind rhyme is a situation set up through language, poetry, rhyming, where the mind will anticipate the word that's coming next. So it's possible to have a joke, a pun, an innuendo. A lot of these things revolve around a mind rhyme. But I was more thinking about, if you like, a visual mind rhyme, where you are presented with one artist's work, and you might begin to develop an understanding of that work, but because of what else is situated with it, you are somewhat confounded, or are lead to a point where there's a kind of bifurcation, or split, and the directions are unpredictable. It creates another type of gap for the mind to work with, a space between what might have been anticipated and all kinds of unexpected associations. In thinking about another person's work, it enters into my frame of reference and it becomes sort of a touchstone, and an important thing. It influences my own thinking. It's a form of collaboration. — As told to Kyra Kordoski Jenna Bliss uses video, performance, sound and text, to navigate public spheres intimately through letter writing and ambivalent fandom. Dreaming of singularity and collectivity simultaneously, she creates and then destroys her singular voice. Much of this work began by performing at pub open mic nights in London. Bliss recently exhibited at Woburn Slade Research Centre, London (2012); White Building [SPACE], London (2012); Piet Zwart Institute, NL (2012); and Camden Arts Centre, London (2012). She was born in Yonkers, New York, USA and currently lives and works in London. Joey Bryniarska's practice is concerned with technology, ornament, subjection, power, vitality. Within the self-reflexivity of reprographic mediums, she creates parallels between this technological food-chain and a larger system of parasitical dependency, reproduction, ornamental deceit and conditions of spectatorship. Bryniarska has exhibited at Post Box Gallery, London (2012); Collective Gallery, Edinburgh (2010); Complesso Monumentale Santo Spirito, Rome, IT (2010); and Royal Academy of Arts, London (2008). Born in Swindon, she currently lives and works in London. Céline Condorelli works, broadly speaking, with art and architecture, combining a number of approaches such as developing possibilities for 'supporting' the work of others, resulting in projects merging exhibition, politics, fiction, public space and whatever else feels urgent at the time. One of her long-term projects, Support Structure (in collaboration with Gavin Wade), has been exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2008); GIL, Guangzhou, Beijing, CN (2007); and Chisenhale Gallery, London (2003). Other recent exhibitions include: Centre d'Art Contemporain de Brétigny, FR (2013); Nottingham Contemporary (2012); Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2011); Tate Modern, London (2011); and Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR (2010). Condorelli lives and works in London. Claudia Doms runs a graphic design studio and frequently collaborates with artists and editors from the UK and abroad. Since 2010 she has made a drawing a day and uses these as formal spurs for her songs, music, videos and paintings. Her work has been shown at: London Design Week (2011); Cream Espai Creatiu, Barcelona, ES (2011); Bulthaup Gallery, St. Petersburg, RU (2010); Witzenhausen Gallery, New York, USA (2010); Red October, Moscow, RU (2010); City Gallery, Tallinn, EE (2010); Meneer de Wit Gallery, Amsterdam, NL (2009); and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, IT (2007). Born in Germany, Doms currently lives and works in London. Kati Kärki's explorations in art have taken her through a combination of media, encompassing photography, printmaking, sculptural furniture, writing and spoken word. She has arranged discursive events, providing intimate settings for discussions about and around art. Recently she performed at Art13 London (2013), and organized a daylong event at Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013). Kärki was born in Finland and currently lives and works in London. Elizabeth McAlpine works with video, film, installation and photography. Her work often engages with ideas of temporality, the passage of time, its tones and textures, and various ways of registering it. Recent solo exhibitions include: Laura Bartlett Gallery, London (2012); Laurel Gitlen, New York, USA (2012); Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2010); and Ballina Arts Centre, IE (2007). Her work is currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum, New York, USA. Recent group exhibitions include: Royal Standard, Liverpool (2013); Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, AU (2013); deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, USA (2012); and Barbican Centre, London (2010). Born in London, McAlpine currently lives and works in London. Fay Nicolson's practice spans a set of associations around educational structures, material understanding and knowledge while approaching the difficulties of recording, coding and distributing presence and experience as information. Recent solo exhibitions include: Künstlerhaus Wien, Vienna, AT(2013); and PLAZAPLAZA, London (2012). Current group exhibitions include White Cube, Masons Yard, London (2013); and The Newbridge Project, Newcastle (2013). Other group exhibitions in 2013 include: Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen; Limoncello; and The London Art Fair, Art Projects. Born in Derby, Nicolson currently lives and works in London. Philomene Pirecki works across painting, photography, drawing, sculpture, projected image and language. Her work addresses memory, time, perception, and their representations. Pirecki often physically and conceptually references her existing works and considers how they can adapt and respond to new conditions and change over time. Recent solo exhibitions include: Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, IE (2013); MOTInternational, Brussels, BE (2012); Clockwork Gallery, Berlin, DE (2012); and Laure Genillard, London (2011). Selected group exhibitions include: Wilfried Lentz Gallery, Rotterdam, NL (2013); Wysing Art Centre, Cambridge, (2013); Supplement, London (2012); Cristina Guerra Gallery, Lisbon, PT (2012); Chelsea Space, London (2011); and The Barbican Art Gallery, London, (2010). Born in Jersey, and currently living and working in London, Pirecki founded the curatorial platform, Occassionals, a peripatetic project for artists, writers and curators to make their work public, usually over a single day or an evening. Laure Prouvost's approach to filmmaking, often situated within atmospheric installations, employs story-telling, quick cuts, montage and deliberate misuse of language to create surprising and unpredictable work. Recent solo exhibitions include the Max Mara Prize for Women at Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013); and Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, IT (2013). Her works have also been on view at Morra Greco Foundation, Naples, IT (2013); Tate Britain, London (2013); MOTInternational, London (2012); Sculpture Center, New York, USA (2011); and The Serpentine Gallery, London (2010). Born in Lille, France, and currently living and working in London, she is a Turner Prize 2013 nominee and was the winner of the Max Mara Prize for Women in 2011. Chooc Ly Tan's practice is multi-disciplinary and incorporates sculpture, video, installations and performances. Through her work she attempts to see beyond the physical constants that govern people's lives, their significance, and to make the possibility of their subjugation all the more fantastic. She asks, "what would a world devoid of physical laws, such as gravity and frames of references, geometry and time, be like"? Selected solo and group exhibitions include: Circa Projects, Newcastle (2012); Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery, London, (2012); Drawing Room, London (2012); Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2011); and The Royal Society, London (2011). Tan was born in La Roche sur Yon, France and currently lives and works in London.