(Above and below) Betwixt 2024 publication. Photos by Andy Stagg, Courtesy of the Freelands Foundation.

In February 2023, Latitudes was commissioned to write a text on the artistic practice of Crystal Bennes for “Betwixt 2024”, a publication produced by the Freelands Foundation as part of their Freelands Artist Programme initiative supporting emerging artists across the UK since 2018.

The book has now launched, coinciding with the opening of an exhibition across four sites in central and north London between 17–23 February 2024, in which Bennes participates alongside 19 other artists based in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Sheffield.

Writers in the publication are Alice Bucknell, Beth Hughes, Candice Jacobs, Cindy Sissokho, Colette Griffin, Ingrid Lyons, Jamie Sutcliffe, Jenny Richards, Kandace Siobhan Walker, Khanyisile Mbongwa, Lara Eggleton, Lucy A. Sames, Maria Howard, Mariana Cánepa Luna, Mark Peter Wright, Max Andrews, Precious Adesina, Rosalie Doubal, Sunshine Wong, Susannah Dickey, Theo Reeves-Evison and Zakiya McKenzie.

Published in 2024, 370 pages. Designed by Kristin Metho.

Available for £15 (plus shipping) here.

(Above and below) Crystal Bennes, “When Computers Were Women” (2021). Courtesy of the artist.

A month later, on March 16, 2024, Bennes will present her new project “O (Copper, cotton, cobalt, crude, naphtha, bauxite, palm)” (2023) at Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh, culminating her two-year residency there and at the Edinburgh College of Art on the Freelands Artist Programme. Involving tapestry, sculptural installation, video, and performance, her project addresses the rapaciousness and sophistry of commodities trading, an arena in which financial instruments are used to bet on the future value of raw materials and natural resources including crude oil, metals, coffee, and cotton.

Latitudes’ text will also be available on the Talbot Rice Gallery website and in the gallery booklets for £2 at the venue. 

Crystal Bennes, Fragment from “O (Copper, cotton, cobalt, crude, naphtha, bauxite, palm)”, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.

A Classicist with a PhD from King’s College London, Dr Crystal Bennes previously worked in the U.S. Senate, and as an architecture and design journalist before retraining as an artist. She studied for an MFA at Aalto University, Helsinki, and École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and obtained a practice-based PhD at Northumbria University, Newcastle.

Her practice is grounded in long-term projects that foreground archival research, durational fieldwork, and material experimentation. Recent bodies of work include an ongoing photographic exploration of an artificial island in Sweden created entirely out of radioactive waste from industrially-produced synthetic fertiliser and the experimental recreation of a nineteenth-century hay meadow based on a myth of unintentional plant migration from Italy to Denmark. 

Recent exhibitions include Platform: Early Career Artist Award, Edinburgh Art Festival (2023); Flora Italica, Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen (2023); Mauvaise Herbes, Centre Photographique d’Ile-de-France; No Island is an Island, Landskrona Foto International Festival; and Hermes and the Veil, Gallery North, Newcastle (all 2021).

Klara and the Bomb (2022) her first photobook—charting connecting threads between the U.S.’s nuclear weapons research, women programmers, the invention of modern computers, and nuclear colonialism—was published by The Eriskay Connection in 2022, and it was shortlisted for the Photo Text Book Award at Les Rencontres d’Arles in 2023. 

Between 2022 and 2024 she was a resident at Talbot Rice Gallery as part of a Freelands Foundation Artists programme. Together with Tom Jeffreys, she is the editor of The Peninent Review.

RELATED CONTENT:

• Latitudes’ writing since 2005.
• Text on Lara Almarcegui’s Graves (2021) in “Sketches of Transition. An Atlas on Growth and Decay” edited by Michele Bazzoli, 27 Oct 2023
• Text on Crystal Bennes for the Freelands Foundation Artists programme, 31 May 2023
• Latitudes’ essay “Un suelo para las historias del arte del futuro” [Soil for Future Art Histories] in TBA21’s catalogue “Futuros Abundantes”, 22 Jan 2023
• Max Andrews reviews Bruno Zhu’s exhibition “I am not afraid”, Cordova, Barcelona, 30 Mar 2022
• Nueva publicación: “Passió i cartografia per a un incendi dels ulls” (MACBA, 2022), 2 Mar 2022 
• New publication: “Things Things Say” now available, 28 Feb 2022

In February 2023, Latitudes was commissioned to write a text on the artistic practice of Crystal Bennes. “Betwixt 2024”, the next iteration of publications of the Freelands Artist Programme, will be out in February 2024, coinciding with an exhibition of Bennes’ work alongside 19 other artists based in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Sheffield.

Involving tapestry, sculptural installation, video, and performance, Bennes’ new project will be exhibited at Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, in March 2024. It addresses the rapaciousness and sophistry of commodities trading, an arena in which financial instruments are used to bet on the future value of raw materials and natural resources including crude oil, metals, coffee, and cotton. 

The Freelands Artist Programme supports and grows regional arts ecosystems by fostering long-term relationships and collaborations between emerging artists and arts organisations around the UK. Between 2022–24, Freelands is working with four organisations – g39 in Cardiff, PS2 in Belfast, Site Gallery in Sheffield, and Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh. Over the two years, each of these venues is supporting a cohort of five artists to take part each year – each artist participating in the programme receives an annual grant of £5k, as well as the opportunity to take part in talks, workshops and other programmed events and a budget for travel, additionally, some organisations offer studio space and/or exhibitions. 

Dr Crystal Bennes is an American artist, researcher, writer, and educator based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her practice is grounded in long-term projects that foreground archival research, durational fieldwork, and material experimentation. Recent bodies of work include an ongoing photographic exploration of an artificial island in Sweden created entirely out of radioactive waste from industrially-produced synthetic fertiliser and the experimental recreation of a nineteenth-century hay meadow based on a myth of unintentional plant migration from Italy to Denmark.

Klara and the Bomb, her first photobook—charting connecting threads between the U.S.’s nuclear weapons research, women programmers, the invention of modern computers, and nuclear colonialism—was published by The Eriskay Connection in 2022. She recently completed an AHRC-funded practice-based PhD in fine art at Northumbria University researching the histories and uses of gendered representations of nature in the sciences and exploring feminist critiques of physics. Between 2022 and 2024 she is a resident at Talbot Rice Gallery as part of a Freelands Foundation Artists programme. Together with Tom Jeffreys, she edits The Peninent Review.

Freelands Foundation is a London-based non-profit organisation set up in 2015 by Elisabeth Murdoch, supporting UK-based artistic practice through residencies, workshops, screenings, and resources for teachers and educators; an annual Freelands Award to an organisation championing mid-career women artists. 

Title: “Betwixt 2024”

Publisher: Freelands Foundation

Release date: February 2024

Writers: include Precious Adesina, Alice Bucknell, Susannah Dickey, Rosalie Doubal, Lara Eggleton, Colette Griffin, Maria Howard, Beth Hughes, Latitudes, Ingrid Lyons, Khanyisile Mbongwa, Zakiya McKenzie, Theo Reeves-Evison, Jenny Richards, Lucy A. Sames, Cindy Sissokho, Jamie Sutcliffe, Kandace Siobhan Walker, Sunshine Wong, and Mark Peter Wright.

RELATED CONTENT:

The February 2023 monthly Cover Story “Soil for Future Art Histories” is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org

“Latitudes’ essay ‘Un suelo para las historias del arte del futuro’ (Soil for Future Art Histories) is included in the newly-released catalogue of Futuros Abundantes (Abundant Futures), an exhibition of works from the TBA21 Collection curated by Daniela Zyman that took place at the C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía in Córdoba last year.” → Continue reading (after February 2023 this story will be archived here).

Cover Stories are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes’ homepage featuring past, present or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects or field trips related to our curatorial projects and activities.