Carbon Synthesis

‘Paying attention acknowledges that we have something to learn from intelligences other than our own. Listening, standing witness, creates an openness to the world in which the boundaries between us can dissolve in a raindrop.’

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Carbon Synthesis evolved during 2020, its aim was to develop an ongoing creative project which responded to deep time and connections through carbon; to use arts practices to reveal invisible narratives creating innovative ways of witnessing climate change.

Three creative practice-led researchers, Dr Donna Franklin (AU), Tracy Hill MA (UK), Dr Sarah Robinson (AU) share on-going collaborative conversations exploring experimental approaches to practice. Unique creative perspectives result in innovative ways of witnessing and responding to issues around climate change.

The global restrictions of 2020 created a need to re-evaluate our terms of engagement with the world, and the physical spaces we could explore became smaller. As the world held its breath, a unique moment in time manifested where virtual conversation and friendship became our new reality. We were awarded an Ars BioArctica residency in Kilpisjärvi, Finland but this was quickly put on hold until international travel became possible following the pandemic.

For the last 5 years our virtual creative responses have formed propositions which have created significant exchanges in ideas and challenged our personal practices. Ideas and approaches were formulated ready to take to Kilpisjärvi. Carbon synthesis explores and reveals invisible narratives and micro-environments which require us to feel and see in new ways. Indeed, spaces which resist being fully understood or contained without challenging our usual perception, imagination and human timescales.

In 2022 the first iteration of our project was produced for Carbon-Borders-Voices, an interdisciplinary online conversation focusing on places of transition, within the context of climate crisis.

This was our first opportunity to explore the links within our practices and test the ideas which had developed through our pandemic conversations.

Carbon Synthesis, Archive of Species was a proposition to see the world in terms of Kairos, a Greek word with two meanings – Time and Weather. It is a word which describes fleeting moments in the landscape which can potentially reveal climatic tipping points.

In September 2024 we finally fulfilled our artist residency in Kilpisjärvi. Arriving from Western Australia and England our individual journeys bought us all together for the first time.

Daily encounters radiated outwards from Lake Kilpisjärvi, journey’s taken on foot exploring the paths of Saana and Malla, trying to find new ways of seeing through silence and thinking through geological vibrations, seeking moments of historical confluence and collision.

“First came the Wind, then Reindeer, then Humans” Leena Valkeapää (2024)

In March 2026 The Birley Studios in Preston gave us the opportunity to test our ideas following the residency. For the first time, we have bought new works together. Informed by ecology, geology, culture, and politics, these works are created through entangled approaches to research undertaken on Sáná Fell, Malla nature reserve, Kilpisjärvi Lake and surrounding birch forests.
Gilbbesjávri/Kilpisjärvi in Sápmi is the cultural region of the Sámi people, stretching across the state borders of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. A site of intense observation and international attention, it is perceived as a landscape which holds both clues and answers for our most pressing global environmental questions.
Carbon Synthesis: Spatial Dissonance will run until April 12th 2026.

Carbon Synthesis AN blog

Ars BioArctica blog

CarbonSynthesisbooklet