King’s student Marina Lozovik, studying for an MA Cultural and Creative Industries, shares her thoughts on working with King’s Culture Climate Collective to create SUPERBLOOM.
It has now been three years since the start of COVID-19, and I feel so much better going for walks instead of bars, and having some plants at home and taking care of them instead of my social network accounts. This new balance, between still being active in the capitalistic and digitalised universe but also occupying myself with nature-connected things, helped me detox my mind and my body. In 2021, I gave away half of my personal belongings, moved to the UK, and started a course at King’s. I feel younger, healthier and much more liberated than previously, when I was ironically 'consumed' by the goods and services I was consuming.
Once my studies at King’s began, I started looking for like-minded people and engaged with King’s Cultural Community. I was especially interested in the King’s Culture Climate Collective. I’ve never created any art myself, and climate ARTivism, a combination of art and activism or artistic activism, seemed very challenging.
Soon, I got invited to assist an artist at the ‘Weathervane: We Not I’ event which featured talks and installations dedicated to climate issues. I was massively excited because this is something I knew technically how to do from previous work experience. But this time I assisted a person directly in creating an installation which was aimed at bringing social change.
Then, I was invited to participate in the Groundwater project, where we have spent the last few weeks collaborating with professional artists to plan and execute a show, called SUPERBLOOM. My group has created an installation that illustrates how technology and artificial intelligence can be used both for detrimental aims and for restoring how we’ve damaged the planet. The main idea behind our installation is that technology is not 'bad', but the power that controls it can be.
I feel a great connection with the exhibition we collectively created and its general idea. I guess I always knew humanity is doing something quite wrong nowadays, judging from my previous life of digital consumption and turning away from nature. I am glad that through King’s Culture Climate Collective initiative we can project these thoughts to people: use science and technology to stop global warming, not speed it up. Learn from nature how to use less and liberate yourself from greed and excessiveness. Remember that we are all nature, and this is where we and our vital forces come from.
SUPERBLOOM is on display in The Arcade at Bush House, Strand Campus until Thursday 6 April, 10.00 – 18.00.
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