victoria sharples
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                           watercolour (2017–2018) (online exhibition)  

Watercolour is an international (e)mail art project in which five pieces of white A4 paper were placed on five coloured seas around the world; the Red Sea, White Sea, Black Sea, Yellow Sea, and Green(land) Sea, by participating artists and scientists, to create five conceptual ‘watercolours’. ​(Watercolour, 2017–2018)
Realised between 2017–2018 across: Saudi Arabia, the Russian Federation, Turkey, the Republic of Korea, Norway and the UK, Watercolour is an international (e)mail art project in which five pieces of white A4 paper were placed on five coloured seas around the world; the Red Sea, White Sea, Black Sea, Yellow Sea, and Green(land) Sea, by participating artists and scientists to create five conceptual 'watercolours'. Invited to contribute to the project through email, participants performed the action of placing their paper substrate against the surface of their nearest 'coloured' water mass. Once the paper had dried, each participant sent their contribution to the UK, using their closest postal service. On their arrival into the UK, each substrate was chemically analysed for (a)biotic trace elements using an X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (XRF) (a non-destructive test that quantifiably determines material composition). Over the duration of the project contributions were received from: Dr Ramona Marasco at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia; Professor Alexander Tzetlin, Dr Anna Zhadan, Nickolay Usov, and Konstantin Biyagov at the White Sea Biological Station, the Russian Federation; Professor All Muzaffer Feyzioglu at Karadeniz Technical University,Turkey; Nick Hobbs, an artist based in Istanbul,Turkey; Yujin Ju, an artist based in Seoul, the Republic of Korea; and Professor Lena Håkansson at the University centre in Svalbard, Norway. With thanks to participatory couriers: DHL, Russian Post (Почта России), Turkish Post (PTT), EMS, Posten Norge, and Royal Mail. And, to participatory scientists: Senior Laboratory Technician Robert Ashurst from The University of Sheffield (UK) (XRF); Professor Clare Woulds and Dr Karen Bacon from The University of Leeds (UK) who analysed the samples using Electron Microscopy and through an Optical Microscope.
// WATERCOLOUR WRITTEN SCORE
// WATERCOLOUR DIAGRAMMATIC SCORE
​// WATERCOLOUR INSTRUCTIONS
// (E)MAIL CORRESPONDENCE

For Watercolour, potential participants were approached online through email. Composed of an invitation, a written and diagrammatic score, and a set of laconic instructions, the Watercolour ‘call for participation’ was sent to a number of artists and scientists around the world to ask them to participate. This was localised to geographic areas of interest and focused on recruiting people who worked near the water’s edge. 
// (E)MAIL CORRESPONDENCE (FOR SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS)

Following the acquisition of the paper samples, I made contact with a number of scientists and laboratory technicians through email. Like the Watercolour participants, who were approached because of their locality to the water’s edge, the scientists were approached in relation to their research interests and for their access to specialist equipment. ​
// X-RAY FLOURESENCE SPECTROMETER ANALYSIS DATA

XRF is an acronym for X-Ray Fluorescence; a process in which electrons are displaced from their atomic orbital positions, releasing a burst of energy that is characteristic of a specific element. This release of energy is then registered by a detector in the XRF instrument, which in turn categorises the energies by element (Bruker, 2020). This release is recorded in PPM % (parts per million), which signifies the number of units per million units of the sum mass measured. In this online publication, the XRF data from the paper samples are enumerated as composite elements of the papers materiality as inseparable from matter found on the substates through the process of their permeation, transportation, and analysis. Here, I refer to the placement of the samples on each body of water; an action which held onto algae, mineral sediments, and minute pieces of driftwood; but also to the envelope’s postage, shipping, and human-handing; an approach which allowed human pathogens, skin cells, and ‘air miles’ to imperceptibly accumulate on their surface. The XRF process was also conditional to exterior factors, including, for example, temperature, machinic​ calibrations, and human observation. This publication is a reductive or (de)constructive meditation on the composition of objects, and their conditionality. This data is available here: WATERCOLOURXR​F
// EXHIBITION

Watercolour was exhibited at Bloc Projects, Sheffield, in 2018.
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