Monday 5 February 2024


 

with Auboutl'eau, the bossy building, with Charlotte Law and Anina Hug

Saturday 18 November 2023


 Newspaper ( the second) 2023

14 pages

edition of 30

 



 



Video and record  for the track Galo by O yama O, 2023, Bison records

From the Quietus 2023
"On Galo, O Yama O, the quartet of Rie Nakajima, Keiko Yamamoto, Marie Roux and Billy Steiger, embrace an improbable array of sound sources. Whistles and whirling rubber tubes meet percussion that could have been taken from a kitchen. Through it all, violin, piano and drums effortlessly switch from stumbling to soaring. Vocals teeter between tender and rabble rousing. But this motley collection of instrumentation isn't a gimmick. From 'Hakushon's stomp through to the title track's joyful fervour, O Yama O sift compelling and remarkably catchy music from unconventional sources. Galo is an invitation to a place where tradition and convention are twisted in a manner that is warmly welcoming rather than alienating."
Daryl Worthington

https://oyamao.bandcamp.com/album/galo




O Yama O at All Ears Festival, Oslo

O yama O Lp, Mana Records

Sunday 22 January 2023

 https://theballadofpeckhamrye.com/a/the-growing-project-open-call-for-artists/

2021

Hello Nature | Elyse Blackshaw, Blythe Cheung & Marie Roux

In the context of the greatest health crisis of our times, increasing scientific evidence highlights the critical importance of accessing our natural environment – of garden plants, gardens and gardening, as a key factor that can benefit our physical, mental, and social wellbeing. Hello Nature is a series of artist-led commissions and workshops that aim to provide Southwark residents with greater opportunities to engage with the natural environment.

The project is being delivered in partnership with The Ballad of Peckham Rye, a not-for-profit contemporary art commissioning organisation, Action For Refugees in Lewisham (AFRIL), an organisation established to support asylum seekers, vulnerable migrants and refugees in south east London and One Tree Hill Allotment Society, a member run community allotment. Hello Nature will enhance the Action For Refugees in Lewisham (AFRIL) allotment that supports families from refugee, asylum-seeking and migrant backgrounds who experience food poverty and are coping in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, through building cohesive and supportive relationships between residents, allotment members and the AFRIL community.

Hello Nature: Future Gardens, how to make a seed bank with Marie Roux
14.00 – 16.00, Saturday 13 November, 2021
One Tree Hill Allotments, 111 Honor Oak Park, SE23 3NP
Suitable for adults and children over the age of 8 years.

Marie Roux presents us with a game in which seeds are collected as objects to exchange. Here the seed characteristics (nutritional, medicinal, space and time) are the function of ‘gifts’ that can be passed on to others. Marie will teach us about propagation and what is being done today to protect seeds and encourage plants diversity. This playful activity will encourage us to create new relationships with our surroundings, share knowledge of growing and enhance our understanding of gift economy.

The workshop will take place outside. The ground is uneven and may be muddy. Please bring wellies or appropriate footwear, as well as waterproof clothing. Due to Covid safety guidance, only drinks refreshments will be provided. All children should be accompanied by an adult with parental responsibility.

About the artist! Marie Roux graduated from London College of Communication, MA Fine Art Photography in 2008. Recent exhibitions include: On and on the yellow knitbone shore, Project 78 gallery, St-Leonards-on-sea (2021), Atelier A Residency with Catarina Cubelo, Apricale, Italy (2018), Welcome to the neighbourhood residency, Askeaton, Ireland (2013), Shelf at the Whistable Biennale and Copeland Industrial Park, Peckham, London (2010)

 

Tuesday 17 August 2021

 On and On 

the Yellow Knitbone shore

at Project 78 Gallery

https://www.project78gallery.com/onandontheyellowknitboneshore

Photos by

Karolína Mikesková

"This can last a long time, until one erradicates directions. There is no more good sense, they are either special or forbidden, so I went round ...I went round...”

From The Giratory Sense by Raymond Devos

 


 

Last year we unearthed Comfrey from the marshes and replanted it in a garden that we had access to and also in the front garden of where I live. It was nice to think that this is how one can make a garden, taking a plant from a place where it grows wild and bring it tosomewhere close where hopefully it might find it favourable to grow there too. Gardeners give each other plants and seeds all the time. Bees and birds transport seeds around too. It goes round.

Also having Comfrey nearby meant if it was needed to help heal sore bodies it could be done. It also became quite addictive to bring flowers and seeds home like experiences and things that had potential. And I photographed it because I like to photograph plants...

A friend at that time observed a family in her local park picking Mugwort and then we found out that we could eat the leaves. This went on and on...

And once in France whilst on a familiar road I noticed for the first time a roundabout that was left wild, unlike the others. It had weeds growing high and wild and when you drove round it you could hear all the wildlife buzzing. I asked if people knew why it didn't have a fountain with palm trees, a sign saying “Welcome”, fake beehives or an imposing monumental cast iron bright red sweet. All things that adorn other roundabouts on this road. People said this roundabout sat at the border of two communes so there was a dispute about who had to pay for it's maintenance, or something like that. An ongoing dispute. Roundabouts are something quite present now in France, they cost tens of thousands to create and they are there to make the living outside of cities more accessible for people.This is what I was told. It was a thing of the Giscard era.

When the show at Project 78 came to fruition, Karolína and I discussed how we could make things that relate to Comfrey, weeds in general, native plants and how they grow around us and how we can give them a new meaning.

Karolína went on to make things and I photographed plants in different contexts where I could find them. I found myself back in France where I kept trying to convince my dad that this roundabout was something quite special each time we went round it. I went by foot to the roundabout with the idea to photograph the ecosystem there and how nature had taken it back, after all this road is built on a swamp so in my mind everything there will one day return back to how it was, water. All the roundabout will be under water. I found a sign next to an existing one with a picture of white Comfrey, the Symphytum officinale or again knitbone, the text explains how because the plant grows there that the area is protected and one cannot build anything on top and not even pick the plant itself. It is special there and overlooked here. It was a nice small discovery. It is a myth here but not there. Can it work the other way round? It is funny to think that we apply our system to plants. In making work we tried to observe how things work.

So no monumental public art display will be laid down on the roundabout. I like to think it will stop anything being imposed there.

This activated a lot of thoughts in no particular order, we looked with care at a plant that is common somewhere and it made me aware that it was protected somewhere else, and on and on.

 

Roundabouts were originally free spaces for public gathering, for people to gather and discuss.

--

 







Monday 29 March 2021



The Headpeelers. Edition of 40. 

 

The Head Peelers is an Artist self-publihed book (40 copies) that takes as a starting point a trip to Ouessant, the furthest island of the coast of Brittany in France. I explored the island in three days and tried to gather as much material as I could. The trip happened in the middle of winter when the weather is very bleak, demanding and changing.

The photographs in the book are trying to find marks, wildlife, historical resources and in the end represent the sensation and experience of being there and point at informations that I gathered but also my limitation and thoughts.And some failed photograohy. I have worked with the writer and musician David Toop to turn the journal and notes from the trip into a longer text that is part of the book, where we combined nature observations, ideas, sounds, description of life on the island and experience and failure to make a more fantastic tale. It becomes unclear who saw what, who experience what, and what was really there.  The red cover is such to recall  a «manifesto» ( I was researching the writer Paul Lafarge's 1808 «The right to be lazy» at the time of the trip).

The book looks at a very natural place and by looking at it  very closely recreates a mystery.