Ep 27 / Lucia Pietroiusti, Serpentine

The head of ecologies at the Serpentine Galleries in London joins us to talk about what makes an ecological artist and 'The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish'.

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Lucia Pietroiusti is the Head of Ecologies at the Serpentine Galleries in London and the first guest of Season Two of the Ecosystem Member podcast.

If you aren’t familiar with the Serpentine, it is a contemporary art gallery in Kensington Gardens. And better yet, admission to the galleries is free for all visitors making it incredibly accessible. Right before I moved from London this year, I visited the Serpentine to see its Yinka Shonibare exhibition ‘Suspended States’, which earned a five-star review from The Guardian and featured his African Bird Magic quilt series that examines the harm to the environment caused by colonial industrialization.

Lucia is one of the driving forces behind the Serpentine’s work as a curator, programmer and organizational strategist. As the Head of Ecologies, she works at the intersection of art, ecology and systems. Her role is to embed environmental responsibility throughout the Serpentine’s infrastructure, operations, networks and programming. She also happened to create this role out of the General Ecology project we discuss in the episode that she started in 2018.

However, her influence stretches beyond the bounds of Kensington Gardens. She was the curator for the Golden Lion-winning opera performance ‘Sun & Sea’ (video embedded above) at the Lithuanian Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale and the ‘Songs for the Changing Seasons’ exhibition at Vienna’s first Climate Biennale earlier this year.

The main question we explore in this episode - what makes an ecological artist?

Using another project Lucia has led - The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish - we discuss if a pufferfish ‘drawing’ an elaborate circle in the sand - thought to attract a mate - make it an artist or at least capable of creating something - PBS even calls in a sculpture in the YouTube clip below - we would call art?

We also discuss the Infinite Ecologies Marathon project at the Serpentine, Lucia’s role as Head of Ecologies and how art can ask big questions about our relationship with nature and the more-than-human world.

Thanks for listening -

Rick

Mentioned in the Episode