The Glucksman is delighted to host ERI Professor Marcel Jansen and artist Moritz Fehr to present their respective research and practice, which intersected in Glenkeen Garden.

Glenkeen Garden is The Crespo Foundation’s artist-in-residence program,  a sanctuary of artistic inspiration and natural-cultural splendour nestled along the shores of Roaring Water Bay in West Cork. Under the title of ArtNature/NatureArt, Glenkeen Garden has served as a space for artists since 2021. Artists from diverse disciplines were invited to spend two to three months on the premise, immersing themselves in the rich tapestry of West Cork's social and environmental fabric. A strong emphasis on art-science collaboration is facilitated through partnerships with the Environmental Research Institute at University College Cork and Frankfurt’s Senckenberg Research Institute. 

Now, with The Glenkeen Variations: Disquieting Frequencies, a new and public part of the program emerges, inviting former residents to return to Ireland and present their works and research to wider audiences at specific communities at the Goethe Institute in Dublin, The Glucksman at UCC, and the Working Artists Studio in Ballydehob.

Prof Marcel Jansen is a plant-ecophysiologist in the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences and the ERI. Marcel has a degree in horticulture from Wageningen University (Netherlands) and a PhD of the Weizmann Institute (Israel). Marcel worked as a researcher at Wye College (London, UK), the John Innes Centre (UK), and the University of Antwerp (Belgium), before starting his own group at UCC in 2003. Marcel’s research focuses on how plants adjust to changes in environmental conditions. Specifically, Marcel investigates how plants perceive and respond to ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Some plant UV responses are highly desirable from a human-perspective, for example resulting in accumulation of phytochemicals that benefit human consumers. However, other UV-responses can result in decreased growth and negatively impact plant biodiversity and/or world food production. Marcel serves on the UNEP Environmental Effect Assessment Panel which advices on the Montreal Treaty, and specifically assesses UV levels in the biosphere in the context of stratospheric ozone depletion. 

Moritz Fehr is an independent artist, researcher and composer currently living and working in Berlin. Following a conceptual and research-based approach, he explores constellations of objectivity and emotion, technology and nature, and psychological and perceptual aspects of hearing and seeing. He realizes works with sound and moving images, which he often presents as site-specific installations, interventions or environments. 

His artistic projects have been exhibited internationally, including at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), Goethe-Institut (Paris), Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art (Las Vegas), Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten Marl, Arko Art Center (Seoul), Museum of Jurassic Technology (Los Angeles), Kunstverein Hildesheim, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden, Tieranatomisches Theater (Berlin) and Kunstmuseum Basel. 

Some of his projects, that were realized as long-term or permanent installations, can be visited at the Velaslavasay Panorama (Los Angeles), Jerusalem Panorama (Altoetting), and at the Memorial Museum Ravensbrück. Since early 2022, Data Acquisition (A Song of Sadness), a spatial sound composition, is permanently exhibited at the Listening Space of the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. 

Fehr studied Media Art and Design at Bauhaus-University Weimar and attended the Tokyo National University of the Arts in Japan with a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Also in Weimar, he completed a Ph.D. in Fine Arts. He has been teaching at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Copenhagen, FH Joanneum Graz and the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, among others.