Project 53 - The Lime Burners, an Environment Envoy project
The Lime Burners
Tim Barlow
14 - 23 May 2021
20 Braemer Street, South Dunedin
images: Justin Spiers
Dunedin Dream Brokerage partnered with Dunedin City Council in our third iteration of Environment Envoy, an environmental arts commission that bridges art and the natural world, funded by Te Ao Tūroa, Dunedin’s Environment Strategy. Tim Barlow with his project The Lime Burners was the recipient of the 2021 Environment Envoy commission.
The Lime Burners group exhibition and public programme hosted by the Gasworks Museum explored the ancient techniques of lime used in art and architecture. Different forms of participation provided an active forum to experiment with lime alternatives as low carbon production processes and discuss solutions in the reduction of CO2 emissions in the artmaking and building industries.
The Lime Burners
Lime materials have a curious history shrouded in mysterious cults, secretive guilds and forgotten knowledge. Fascinated by this 10,000 year old association between humans and quicklime, Tim Barlow invited local artists; Jenny Hjertquist, Madeleine Child, Madison Kelly, Daisy Biscuit, Stuart Griffiths, Anna-Marie Mirfin, Patrick Ferris, Louisa Baillie, Gavin Thomson, Jenna Packer, Andrew Barsby, Ben Eyers, Rupert Morris, Dillon Waddell, and Marion Familton to reimagine the relationship between humans, technology and lime culture. The Lime Burners showcased experimental, recovered, artistic and masonry techniques focused on limestone, lime plasters and lime concretes.
More about the workshops here
Although some of the contributors have considerable professional expertise in the use of quicklime, many of the artists were exploring the uses of lime for the first time or re-engaging with past encounters. The Lime Burners are a group on a path of discovery, sharing knowledge and uncovering some of the mythical practices and new innovations of using this beautiful material. They represent a group of practitioners not afraid to take risks and make mistakes, work in unfamiliar territory and share the knowledge they discover. This requires building relationships with a wider community, with those who manage or control resources, with other artists, technicians, suppliers, decision-makers, mana whenua, agriculturists and quarry operators.
Tim Barlow
Barlow’s research into lime became specific to Ōtepoti Dunedin and Otago during his residency at the Otago Polytechnic Dunedin School of Art in 2020.
The Lime Burners poses questions around whether our ancestors knew how to create a better built world and culture than the one we live in now. Should we return to past technologies and how do we incorporate past knowledge with hi-tech modern production? The need for local sourcing of materials, self-reliance and available knowledge of materials technology has perhaps never been greater.
The Lime Burners brings together an interdisciplinary group of artists, stonemasons and builders to explore the fascinating 10,000 year association of humans and quicklime in an exhibition, series of demonstration/workshops and discussions. The artists will work with a range of lime based; plasters, mortars, frescos and concretes and also consider the ‘techne’ of lime, a broader consideration of its utilisation and value for contemporary society and the environment.
In Aotearoa the colonial building boom of the 19th century occurred as Portland cement was displacing lime use in many areas of building construction and architectural decoration. The smaller local lime kilns first built to service regional locales were being displaced by larger industrial kilns by the 1880’s and along with it centuries of acquired knowledge from the immigrant lime artisans. In today’s world with the required reduction in environmental pollution and decarbonisation of industry we are seeing a return of the use of lime, in heritage building restoration, high-tech new housing and commercial buildings and increasingly in demand for artists products. This is heralding interesting new times when a more dispersed and diverse artistic community joins with other disciplines to rebuild our material world and create new meanings for human relationships with technology and the environment.