Project Description

Squirrealism: Psychometry (IIC) in Artistic Practice explores intuition and touch as methods of research-creation within a shared squirrel–human environment. Drawing on observations of grey squirrels and materials gathered around the trees they inhabit, the paper considers how artistic practice can engage multispecies relationships through foraging, assemblage, and psychometry—the practice of seeking intuitive impressions through contact with objects.

Organic remnants and discarded human materials become points of connection between species, carrying traces of the environments in which they meet. Through attention to squirrel behaviour, nest-making, and the sensations that arise while handling these materials, I explore how thinking and making might become collaborative processes. The research asks how intuitive approaches can unsettle assumed boundaries between species and open other ways of attending to the lives around us.

This paper and accompanying research-creation were presented online at the International Multispecies Methods Research Symposium, hosted by the University of Saskatchewan, May 8–12, 2023. Bringing together scholars, artists, Indigenous Knowledge Keepers, animal care providers, and animal communicators, the symposium explored Intuitive Interspecies Communication and its possibilities for respectful multispecies relationships.

Read the paper · View the symposium programme

 

 

Screencapture, 05/09/2023. Multispecies Methods Research Symposium 2023.

Screencapture, 05/09/2023. Multispecies Methods Research Symposium 2023.

Carollyne Yardley, Molecular (right view), from the Symbiogenesis series, 2020. Found and foraged cedar bough (sustainably harvested after windstorm), pampas grass, human hair, plastic mesh tree protector, 17?? x 10?? x 8??. Installation view from Becoming Plastic at Deluge Contemporary Art, 2022. Photograph by Spartan Media.

Carollyne Yardley, Molecular (right view), from the Symbiogenesis series, 2020. Found and foraged cedar bough (sustainably harvested after windstorm), pampas grass, human hair, plastic mesh tree protector, 17′′ x 10′′ x 8′′. Installation view from Becoming Plastic at Deluge Contemporary Art, 2022. Photograph by Spartan Media.