RUBY ARROWSMITH-TODD Enter Medium Earth
A lake echoes the sky. Glassy waters play the flight ways of birds, cirrus clouds and squall. Apparitions flit. The scene beguiles.

These landscapes made from reflective pools and surfaces, why are they so compelling? Is it something to do with the way nature seems to be offering itself as an artistic medium, on display more for its own celebration than for human delectation?

Stone, soil, sea and sky, light and darkness. The earth is a physical and multisensory medium, a means of connection (like language or paint) that is laden with traditions of communication linking humans not only to other humans, but to all the other lively factors in our global system of vitality. Animal, vegetable, mineral. All entities relating to and acting upon each other. As eco-philosopher Donna Haraway notes, the stories we tell are ‘of the world, not in the world. Worlds are not containers, they’re patternings, risky co-makings, speculative fabulations’. Composed of their myriad connective factors, worlds are alive and ever-altering. Therefore, they can die too.

What kinds of worldly stories are needed now?

Read full essay at togetherinart.org

— Ruby Arrowsmith-Tood

Curatorial essay for Medium Earth
Art Gallery of New South Wales
An exhibition for the digital realm, presenting four vignettes of multispecies encounter by Karrabing Film Collective, Taloi Havini, Gabrielle Brady and mudmind.