About

Ash Périer is currently developing a in)disciplinary Situated practice working on projects merging environmental conservation efforts, experimental art approach and local knowledges from the fields she investigates. For the past five years, her work has been focused on water ecosystems with a situated approach. 

Situated practices, a concept articulated by the philosopher Donna Haraway in 1988, refer to ways of producing knowledge through actions that are grounded in specific positions and contexts, rejecting the fiction of only one neutral, universal form of knowledge. They form a political project that challenges dominant and opressive regimes and supports collective, localized, and emancipatory modes of action attentive to humans and the entangled forces of the worlds they are part of.

Collaborating with artists, researchers, encounters and coïncidences, they create objects, texts, pluri-sensorial installations and methods that take care of water ecosystems by working on the alteration of percepts and affects with a concrete positive environmental impact. 
Each sensory installation aims to reach beyond the limits of the art world by investigating contexts of environmental conservation and non-academic knowledges.



The aim of each project is not to en-
courage people to become more sensitive
(a convenient catch-all phrase) 
but to make them capable 
of greater attention.
 




CV






Contact

Ash Périer
ashleyperier1@gmail.com
Instagram : @ash.perier





























MOULTING / DEPOLLUTING LAKES FROM FOSSIL FUEL
(Belgium, Sloviena 2022-2023)


This work started from a precise situation : water contaminated by rainbow petrol leaks. Moulting explores ways to take care of water in a poetical but also concretely effective site specific manner involving local comunities in 3 steps : 

Step 1 : Collecting hair @Recyclart Art Center in Brussels, braiding a collective hair journal by harvesting stories and hair
Step 2 : Activating the collective hair filter at the surface of polluted local lakes and cleaning the water through a restaurative performance
Step 3 :  After the hair filter cleaned the lakes, creation of a phytopepuration system to unpollute residual pollution traped in the hairfilter, installation in an exhibition in Brussels and Slovenia.

This research took the shape of writings, installations and performances deploying a chain reaction of care faced to a chain of suffering. Around 150 beings participated : human-animals, non-humain animals, vegetals, minerals, two lakes and one river involved. 
Moulting is pulsated by an interspecie collaboration and acts towards ecological resilience. 




Step 1 :  Hair journal, harvesting stories and hair for the filter @Recyclart art center, Belgium. 



It started as an exhibit at the Art Center Recylart in Brussels where visitors were invited to donate their hair while writing personal stories and memories about their life. Troughout the exhibition, a hair journal grew braiding stories from arround the world and collecting hair that will later serve to unpollute water. Hair has an outstanding bioabsorbant capacity : 1kg of hair can absorbe up to 8L of petrol. Arround 120 beings donated their hair including lots of humans, dogs, a rabit, one horse. 

Article : https://recyclart.be/fr/agenda/ash-perier-mue-hair-journal 





Step 2 :  Activating the hair filter at the surface of polluted local lakes


Later on, I sewed a floating filter made out of all the hair of the participants and went to swim in lakes and rivers where there had been leakings of petrol in too small quantities for big epuration centers to be taken care of. In collaboration with Ernesto Thielemans, we built a on-wheel system that we could attach to a bicycle to bring the filtration system (involving a hydroponic system, a mineral filter, and a oil seperator) to the location of the lakes. Once arrived at the lakes, we would deploy our low-tech system and unpollute the lakes. These performative swims activated the filter through a reparative and collective performance. 

From this restorative gesture, two short films were produced. One of them has been selected & featured for the Festival ‘Eclat’ at Beurschouwburg Art Center in Brussels.  



Step 3 : Phytopepuration system and exhibition in Brussels and Slovenia



After the hairfilter unpolluted waters, I treated it in low-tech phytoepuration system using plants capable of biodegrading the residual hydrocarbons in a hydroponic system. This installation was featured at ERG in Brussels in collaboration with Ernesto Thielemans. Later, Moulting has been selected in the finalist young european emerging artist contest ‘Code green : Future of Europe 2022’ and was financed and featured at the BITE performance art festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia.  




credits for the photos and videos to Cecilie Fang Jenssens.
credits to Ernesto Thielemans for co-building the phytoepuration system and participating together at the Bite art festival.

©2025 RIGHTS RESERVED to Ash Périer