A commissioned essay by Camila Marambio for Hyundai Artlab on the decision to end Ensayos.
Read the essay online here: https://artlab.hyundai.com/editorial/the-art-of-submersion-what-peatlands-taught-me-about-con-fusion
Excerpt: I have been listening to the cries of peatlands for half a decade. Each new one I hear prompts a unique response-ability. All of them amalgamate to create a rallying cry, a plea for greater acknowledgment of their existence, validity, and legal rights: Bog is Good! Praise Bog! Holy Peat! Hol-Hol Tol! Peatlands are a sacred register of what cannot be codified, captured, or even understood. Tuning in to their il/legibility, in/visibility, and in/audibility opens us up to the potential of emancipation from regimes of distinguishability. They offer reprieve from limited sense-making, leaving us in a liminal state, with slippery minds. They activate other forms of knowing, a sort of murky sensuality. Most of all, peatlands offer (me) ongoing lessons in con/fusion.
For the past 14 years, I have led a nomadic eco-cultural research collective called EnsayosEnsayos. In English, Ensayos means “rehearsals.” Ensayistas are artists, scientists, and activists who collaborate on eco-cultural inquiries. The inspiration for our “undisciplined” methodology came from Sørfinnset Skole/the nord landSørfinnset Skole/the nord land, an art and ecology project in Gildeskål, Norway, founded in 2003 by artists Geir Tore Holm and Søssa Jørgensen, with Kamin Lertchaiprasert and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Sørfinnset Skole looks at how contemporary art can function in long-term dialogue with a coastal community and was itself modeled on the land foundationland foundation, which in 1998 began merging ideas from different artists to cultivate social engagement.
Image: Rosario Ureta, El Fin De Ensayos, 2024. Commissioned by Hyundai Artlab, © Rosario Ureta.