Raya Gray - Situated Knowledges

Situated Knowledges is a multidisciplinary and multimedia body of research-based artwork that takes an approach to knowledge production that is less concerned with arriving at definitive outcomes, and is more keen to acknowledge the entanglements and fluctuations that arise through working within both conceptual and nonconceptual domains. Terrains and infrastructures across Scotland are mapped and viewed through a semi-fictional lens as a way of actively engaging with ecological and technological perspectives and issues.

Specific species found at Drumclog Moor in Milngavie and at two nuclear sites on the West and East Coasts of Scotland are investigated. The abundance of Usnea subfloridana (Old Man’s Beard Lichen) and Fomes fomentarius (Horse’s Hoof Fungus) at the vegetatious moor landscape are in contrast to species found at Hunterson B Nuclear Power Station and Torness Nuclear Power Station. Lichens and fungi are used as bioindicators due to their porous and absorbent structure, considering this the work explores the effects that human activity has had on these environments.

Whilst making site-specific work, the knowledge gathered is threaded into a practice focused on co-subjectivity and one which is in multispecies alliance across the divisions of nature, culture and technology. By way of techno-sensual artistic exploration the boundaries between the human and the non-human are blurred. An aesthetically-reflexive interpretation of nature and complex human-made infrastructures, it acts as both a living and representational archive of tacit knowledge derived from the sites and asks: how can the microbial portraits of Drumclog Moor and the nuclear sites probe human perception of time vs microbial and geological time scales?

A collaborative exhibition with the artist Rachy McEwan

Exhibited at iota (Glasgow) in 2022

Geological Nuclear Totems (Part I), Digital film displayed on monitor

Reinocluating Other Pernicious Ones, Vitrine containing: agar, seaweed, branches with lichen, plaster tree sculpture and mycelium circuit board sculpture, 214x91cm

Close-up of Reinocluating Other Pernicious Ones

Excerpt from Geological Nuclear Totems (Part I), Digital film, 25 mins

Potential Stimulus Into Biosemiotic Code, 16mm film, 5 minutes

Untitled, Oil paintings on linen, 30x30cm

Potential Stimulus Into Biosemiotic Code, 16mm film projection

Reinoculating Other Earthly Ones, Vitrine containing: agar, Usnea subfloridana (Old Man’s Beard Lichen), Fomes fomentarius (Horse’s Hoof Fungus), tree trunk, lichen and plaster foot sculpture, 214x91cm