Ask The Ants

What can we learn from ants? This free online event invites artists Feral Practice and Marcus Coates and specialists in ant ecologies, Dr Elva Robinson, and Natural Science researcher and author, Charlotte Sleigh, to discuss what ants can teach us about our human world.

Borrowing from the Gardeners' Question Time format, the panel will answer any questions you may have about human society by drawing upon their expertise in ants. Submit your question in advance via this form or bring it with you on the day. Questions can vary from the tiny to the vast, and from the political to the deeply personal. Addressing some of life’s thorny problems from the perspective of ants opens up unexpected creative thinking for everyday life.

This event celebrates The Antic-Museum, an exhibition by Feral Practice at Scarborough Art Gallery (until 30 January 2022). It is part of Ask the Wild, a collaborative project by Feral Practice and Marcus Coates, which offers fresh perspectives on personal, social, and political issues in human society by bringing the expert knowledge of the natural history disciplines to bear on everyday human problems and dilemmas. Previous events include Ask the Sea at Tate St Ives and Ask the Birds at Whitechapel Gallery.

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Feral Practice works with human and nonhuman beings to create art projects that develop ethical and imaginative connection across species boundaries. feralpractice.com

Marcus Coates is a performance artist, writer and film maker. His work continually draws parallels to examine how we perceive human-ness through imagined non-human realities. https://www.marcuscoates.co.uk/

Elva Robinson is Senior Lecturer in Ecology at York University and author of Wood Ant Ecology and Conservation (Cambridge University Press 2016). Elva conducts active research on the wood ants of the North York Moors, and we are delighted she can participate in this panel as our scientific expert. https://www.york.ac.uk/biology/research/ecology-evolution/elva-robinson/

Charlotte Sleigh is a researcher, writer and practitioner across the science humanities. Her research interests began in the history of biology, and have continued as such with an emphasis on animals. She is the author of Ant (Reaktion, 2003) and Six Legs Better: A Cultural History of Myrmecology (Johns Hopkins, 2007). https://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/people/charlotte-sleigh

Image: Queen on the nest, Broxa © Feral Practice