A performance and research programme asking what John Ruskin’s troubled account of a changing sky can make possible now.
Storm-Cloud is an interdisciplinary artistic research project conceived and led by Dr Tom Payne.
Encounter the work
Explore the archive
Respond to the lecture
In 1884, John Ruskin described a ‘plague-wind’ darkening Britain’s skies. After decades of looking closely at weather, painting and landscape, he believed that the atmosphere itself had changed, and that the smoke and ‘filth’ of industrial society formed part of the cause. His argument was urgent, unstable and unresolved.
Storm-Cloud returns these lectures to public life. It does not present Ruskin as a modern climate scientist, or treat his text as a settled historical diagnosis. Instead, it places his acts of observation, uncertainty and provocation in dialogue with contemporary climate knowledge, museum collections, performance, moving image, music and the observations of others.
Beginning as a lecture-performance in Sheffield, Storm-Cloud now moves through live performance, exhibition, immersive media, learning and a growing archive of creative responses.
Not only: how do we understand Ruskin? But: what can we make with Ruskin?
Gathered into strands
Observations
of the Sky
The lecture-performance, remade in relation to different places, collections and audiences.
Imaginative Contemplation
Exhibitions and installations exploring how weather is observed, represented and interpreted.
The Better Knowledge
of Friends
Artists, researchers, curators and communities bring different forms of knowledge into dialogue.
Thrown into Form
Ruskin’s lectures are reinterpreted through performance, moving image, music and other creative forms.
Impressions of
the Matter
An open live brief inviting creative responses to any aspect of Ruskin’s lecture. Contributions become part of the growing Storm-Cloud archive.
Storm-Cloud takes shape through five interconnected strands.
Each can be remade with different collaborators, communities, collections, places and climates.
Works arising
Artists and collaborators develop substantial works and public programmes through their encounters with Storm-Cloud. Each has its own authorship, context and life.
Storm-Cloud 360:
Fragments in Connection
by Jake Goodall and collaborators
An immersive 360-degree installation remaking fragments of the recorded performance, motion design and score as an environment without a live performer.
Late: The Art of Science
by Mel Lacey and collaborators
A participatory museum late exploring clouds, air, rivers and climate through demonstrations, talks and workshops in response to the Look of the Sky exhibition.
Pictured: participants at weaving workshop.
Photograph: Catherine Higham.
Fruit Doesn't Survive in Salt
by White Teeth 98
Created in response to Impressions of the Matter, this new film brings the filmmakers’ own perspective to Storm-Cloud and forms part of The Look of the Sky exhibition.