Interview with Sarah Smuts-Kennedy

Could You Briefly Explain The Driving Force/Motivation Behind Your Work?

I am interested in systems thinking that encourages balance in an otherwise unbalanced world. You could call it performing the possibility of healing. More recently I am thinking of my practice as the attempt to co create a hyper object called a Joy Field. The hyper object concept comes from Professor and Philosopher of Ecology Timothy Morton who uses it to help us frame the concept of climate change. More and more I am thinking about how intention and attention function in this space.

Quantum physics proposes that what we give attention to is amplified. This amplification occurs in the field not just over actual airwaves and WIFI but also in the imagination of us all and the feeling space or (vibrational quality) we share and inhabit together. The things we give attention to are sculpting our spaces at both the personal, hyper local and global scales. So if my attention is changing and influencing the field I experience, my question to myself is, what am I being responsible for amplifying. This question prompts me to be more responsible for the intention behind my attention.

If I am interested in balance returning to different sectors; say the personal or the environmental sector, I need to decide, do I amplify the thing that is creating the imbalance or do I imagine, create and amply the thing that might restore balance. I use the symmetrical thermodynamic principles of entropy and syntropy to frame this action and choice. Entropy is part of the system where energy is moving towards the death impulse and chaos. Whereas syntropy is part of the system where energy is moving towards the life impulse and order. The flow between these two energetic trajectories is essential for dynamic life to occur. Where the flow stalls life is hindered and dis-ease emerges.

Entropy is part of the timeline which is influenced by the past. Whereas syntropy is part of the timeline that is influenced by the future. Entropy is all things in this world which occur to us as solid and material, and syntropy is all things in our universe that are etheric, and immaterial like our breath, thoughts, imagination, feelings, intuition, light. In this modality I use my inner-tuition and choose to create rather than react to the world I inhabit.

By simply shifting the C or my seeing I am able to change what I give my attention to and therefore what I amplify. I am responsible for the antenna and the broadcast tool that I am. I think of the works that I co create as antennas and broadcast tools. I am intentionally learning how to become an antenna and a broadcast tool capable of influencing the vibrational qualities that are experienced in human bodies as joy and love; and in the ecological world as complex, dynamic, thriving living systems.

Please Talk A Bit About The Process Of Your Work.

I no longer see my practice as separate from life. I learn how to live and this informs my practice and I learn how to make work and this
informs me on how to live. Listening/Intention/Feeling/Surrender/Action/Listening. Breathing In and Breathing out. A relationship between Self and Other
Looking at patterns that reflect movement, life and harmony. Developing systems to give form to these patterns with the purpose of increasing the potential of wellness. Reminding myself to observe how life is occurring and remembering that what I perceive is a reflection of me and my own potential to imagine what is possible. Reminding myself I am a spiritual Being having a human experience not a human Doing. Being kind to myself and others I share space with. Trusting myself. Leaning into the flow. Leaning into the edges of what I know and expanding the boundaries of my capacities to collaborate.

Where Has Your Work Engaged With Systems Change-Making? 

For the Love of Bees is a social sculptural commission I was given by the Auckland Council Design Office in 2016. It invited the city to help co-create a city safe for bees. It asked citizens to help imagine what this might look like and then created learning adventures for people to join in to become protagonists in this sculptural opportunity. It asked the question could love as an energy system accelerate behaviour change. It used thought forms as its main strategy and grounded these in co-created events, and model sites. It grew to become a charitable trust that is spearheading a regional and national conversation about regenerative organic urban farming, community composting, civic organic weed control, and bee safe practices.

Its main material assets included bees and beekeeping classes in civic parks, regenerative organic learning hubs in the CBD; 500m2 urban market garden OMG, flower habitats called Pasture Paintings, community composting hubs across the city centre. Its immaterial assets included celebrating each other, making visible actions, a sense of connectedness, hopefulness, reimagining what was possible in the city, a regenerative organic urban farming movement supported the whatsapp platform called the UFA. This has currently culminated in an educational platform called earthworkers hort 101 that is supported over 100 projects across NZ. It has influenced local government climate change and food security planning and investment strategy, civic organic weed control strategy in streets and parks.