Veronica Vossen
Working between a studio in Peckham, London and a project base in the wild and remote NW Highlands of Scotland, the elemental experience of interactions of the lithosphere, hydrosphere and the aerosphere are the inspiration for ‘Aeonic’,’ my long-term project of the last decade. Drawing on earth sciences, meteorology, geology, palaeontology and climatology, the focus of my work is the ecological balance of Earth’s biosphere. exploring aeonic timespans of Earth’s evolutionary processes and remains, as opposed to the relative ‘eye-blink’ of the present Age of the Anthropocene with its human depredations on climate, habitat and species.
‘Tellus Nullius’ is the resulting extensive series of work including an immersive 3 channel video installation and associated single channel videos for both installations and screenings. The works are forms of “slide-motion film”, multiple stills cumulated into dissolving image/time sequences, interspersed and underlaid with moving image sequences, shifting between stillness and motion. In an immersive space with ambient elemental sound, the hypnotic visual and audio rhythms invoke a state of reverie and contemplation, an elemental experience of the Earth's ecosphere. Print works and print installations are developed from the visual imagery of the moving image work for exhibition in a variety of formats.
In my wider art practice and connected research I am concerned with liminal perception and ambiguity in visual consciousness, and how shifting between still and moving image can disrupt and transform time consciousness and visual focus. Through immersive moving image installation, I aim to invoke an altered, receptive and reflective state of consciousness.
Lived Experience
The central work of my ‘Aeonic’ project is ‘Tellus Nullius: Tria’, an immersive 3 channel video installation, from which a series of single channel videos have been further developed for installations and screenings in both cinematic and site-specific locations. These have been shown internationally in film festivals and exhibitions throughout 2024 -26 including in: New York, London, Tokyo, Athens, Barcelona, Berlin, Calabria Italy, Copenhagen, Seoul and in the Immersive Dome, Plymouth, UK. The prototype immersive installation and exhibition of the ‘Tellus Nullius’ series was presented in ‘Aeonic’ in 2023 at An Talla Solais Gallery, Ullapool, Scotland within the remote NW Highland area where, over many years, I photographed, filmed and developed the work.
After some years living and working in Hackney, London, since 2015 I work between a studio in the contemporary creative hub of Peckham, London and a home and studio in the far northwest of Scotland. Here is the inspiration for the shift over the last decade to a committed Art and Ecology focus in my work and curatorial projects and the development of my '‘Aeonic’ project.
Previous work has been presented in exhibitions, installations and site-specific interventions and screenings in Edinburgh, Inverness, London, and across the UK and Europe, not only in independent and public galleries, but also in unusual locations. These were both outdoor projections and often in buildings of defunct usage eg. old pub, warehouse, office building and old bank, Strand Underground Station, Shoreditch railway arches, old cinema and de-consecrated church etc.
I initially developed my practice through a Fine Art Master’s and then Doctorate and research programs in London at UeL and the Slade School of Art, UCL. My doctoral thesis “Mapping the Visible: Vision & Perception within Lens & Time-based Practice” addressed issues of ambiguity and alterity in visual and temporal perception in film and photographic imagery and in immersive installation exploring altered states of consciousness. This was in tandem with collaborations within a ‘Science/ Art’ context with neuroscience of vision research projects at University College London and King’s College London, presenting work in the latter’s medical school and research centre, where I also developed and taught “Bodyworks”, a Medical Humanities course - a cultural & social interrogation of the 'Representation of the Body’ in contemporary visual art & throughout art history.
