RACHY MCEWAN
Rachy McEwan is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher based in London. In 2020, she graduated with First Class Honors in a Bachelor of Fine Art in Painting and Printmaking from The Glasgow School of Art, where she was awarded the RSA New Contemporaries Award. More recently, she completed a Master's in Material Futures at UAL: Central Saint Martins with Distinction and was shortlisted for the Maison/0 LVMH Maison Award.
Rachy challenges traditional approaches to human perception through her work, which explores the interconnections between technology and environmental, political, and societal issues. By bridging the natural, artificial, and non-human worlds, she collaborates across disciplines such as engineering, arboriculture, and science to reshape our relationships with the land and more-than-human entities.
Her research and techno-sensual artistic practices foster new cognition and machine-learning dialogues. She introduces innovative concepts like the sensorial ecology of intelligence, the machine microbiome, machine ecosystems, and biological machines.
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DON’T FUCK WITH TREES2024
little ghost, tall
oriental sycamore
the one i adore
entangled camo
the london plane tree
so much to see
yet
very free
Don’t Fuck with Trees tells a story rooted in research-based artwork, aiming to transcend fixed outcomes while exploring the complexities inherent in speculative domains. The London Plane, the protagonist, is a tree that fell in Soho Square, London—an emblematic focal point for analysis—succumbing to root rot and raising critical questions about the entanglement of climate change within our ecological systems.
Through this installation, the tree's essence is rejuvenated using audio, painting, and digital mediums.The London Plane Tree (Platanus x hispanica) is a non-native tree: a hybrid of the Oriental plane (P. orientalis) and the American sycamore (P. occidentalis). The mottled olive, brown, and grey bark breaks away in large flakes to reveal new yellow-colored bark underneath. This process cleanses the tree of pollution that has been stored in the outer bark. The London plane is valued for its ability to adapt to urban conditions and its resistance to pollution, making it the most common tree in London.As this tree extends its roots from the physical into the digital realm, the boundaries between human, technology, and ecological systems blur.
The immersive audio takes audiences on a journey—from mycelium-tree root electrical signals to the xylem tubes that transport water from roots to the tree's crown. Within the network of mycorrhizal fungi, we witness the dissolution of self-boundaries—illustrating that we are all porous, interconnected, and entangled.