CA Ryan

Convention House

Born in 2020, the artistic identity of CA Ryan is a sacrificial one, registering the decade’s impending threats to life.

This is the vision of CA Ryan: The climate emergency is real and it is happening now. Its outcomes are brutal and difficult to predict. It threatens all life, not only human life. Mass extinctions are already underway, and the crisis manifests itself in various deadly forms: rising seas, floods, cyclones, droughts and fires. Human-made structures look fragile in the face of such forces. 

CA Ryan

CA Ryan’s practice to date includes drawings, which record destructive processes, and very small erasable sculptures.

As part of the Convention House Residencies, CA Ryan joins us as one of three seed commissions. The commissions will give space to the artists to work on their ideas as initial explorations, giving them space and time to dedicate themselves to learning and discovering more about their next steps as an artist.

CA Ryan will be conducting an artistic investigation of Drax power station and its supply line. Drax is a large power station near Selby in North Yorkshire. It supplies 6% of the UK’s electricity. Its conversion from burning coal to burning wood pellets was heralded as a switch that would reduce emissions, but there are growing concerns about the environmental impact of this switch, which has created a huge demand for wood pellets. Trees burned at Drax come from forest areas in the Southern states of the US, in Canada and Estonia. Local activists in these countries have highlighted damage to forest ecosystems due to increased felling, and air pollution issues from production of wood pellets. 

During the seed commission period, CA Ryan will be using Convention House’s resources to start developing an installation of sculptural and video work relating to Drax. They will be experimenting with 3D printing techniques to make a miniature model of Drax power station. The seed commission will also enable them to start flying East Street Arts’ drone, with support from Convention House’s technician. Other objectives of the commission include a laser-cut map of Drax’s global supply lines, and purchase of tools for wood whittling.