Fernando Casasempere – Firing Up: Art, Ecology and the Inconvenient Kiln

Fernando Casasempere’s work rests on three fundamental pillars: pre-Hispanic art, landscape and the environment, and nearly 30 years of living in London. Since 1991, he has been speaking about ecology, yet we face the reality that current technology does not avoid the enormous energy consumption that firing a kiln demands. The question is how to maintain, despite this incongruence, a coherent discourse that genuinely contributes to addressing the climate crisis without falling into greenwashing. Casasempere is convinced that artists can offer real solutions despite these limitations, and it is from this perspective that he will address the subject.

Fernando Casasempere works with clay, ceramic, and industrial matter, redefining the possibilities of these materials for contemporary sculpture. Through a fascination with the imprint left by humans on the earth, he draws on archaeology, geology, landscape and classical and modern architecture to subvert sculptural archetypes, while speaking to urgent global ecological and social concerns through the lens of his native Chile. He has exhibited extensively in the UK, Chile, North America, Japan and Europe and is renowned for monumental installations including the critically acclaimed Out of Sync at Somerset House, London, 2012, and Back to the Earth at New Art Centre, Salisbury, 2005.