Thank you Ryoanji Records for selecting my Storm Darcy/Snow Ball artwork for Ingrid Plum‘s new album, Corporeality. The work was created during Storm Darcy in February 2021, using a melting snow ball, Cyanotype chemicals and several hours outside in the storm
It’s said that more people die in storms named with ‘female’ names because of misogynistic perceptions of femaleness. This research has been challenged, but the weather naming practice has a history of gender politics. Since 1953, the US National Weather Service feminised storms with only female names, following the naval tradition and the practice of men naming storms after their wives, girlfriends and saints. This was challenged by Roxcy Bolton, gender activist and meteorologist, during an 8 year campaign in the US in the 1960s-70s
Bolton’s campaign was part of her wider activism towards liberating women. In her words, the practice of only using female names for weather events “reflects and creates an extremely derogatory attitude toward women,” who “deeply resent being arbitrarily associated with disaster”
Nature has been feminised through Mother Nature and Gaia figures across cultures since early civilization. The modern/Western use – such as that challenged by Bolton – has been toxified in patriarchal society as it mirrors exploitation and extraction of natural resources: if women are close to nature, they can be controlled too
Some argue that moving away from feminising nature using traditional binary could help to deconstruct stereotypes in wider society, stemming from concepts like Charles Darwin’s hierarchy, from top to bottom: male, female, nature. Or perhaps by mutually healing our disrupted relationship with living ecosystems (with ways of being that prioritise care and regeneration) it could also help us to redress other human imbalances
These are some of the ideas that I chew over when I make my work… Do check out Ingrid’s new album! It’s available to listen, download and purchase on Bandcamp