Lauren Saunders
Lauren Saunders (b.1990, London) is a professional visual and participatory artist based in Hull, UK. She works collaboratively with people and place to help both human and more-than-human communities tell their stories about nature and the climate crisis.
Her practice-research explores how art and climate hope can support in building nature connection, ecoliteracy and place-based stewardship and ultimately develop radical kinship, kindness and compassion with the natural world.
She takes an interdisciplinary and emergent approach that blends art, ecology, and social activism. She typically works across participatory practice, workshops and events, temporary sculpture and land-based installation, experimental drawing, ceremonious meaning-making and intimate ritual:song-based performance to help drive equitable and meaningful climate action and place-based stewardship.
Lauren is a highly experienced community artsworker with a strong track record of delivering meaningful, accessible artistic commissions and projects within healthcare, education and community environments. https://laurensaundersart.co.uk/artistcv/
Lauren practices through the lenses of class, feminism, disability and wider themes of climate hope, resilience and solidarity. Yet she is influenced by a wide range of environmental research and eco-sociological practice, including; Traditional Ecological Knowledge, environmental philosophies and ethics, Permaculture practice, conservation science, foraging and growing, nature-based folklore, ceremony and rituals explored within her own Anglo-Irish ancestry, climate activism and her own direct experience of ‘listening’ to the Earth.
She maintains a robust professional practice and is an experienced community artsworker with a strong track record of delivering meaningful, accessible artistic commissions and projects within healthcare, education and community environments. She is also the Co-Director of arts project The Critical Fish (which aims to make conversations about art more inclusive), and the Arts Lead for Hull Friends of the Earth – both of which has a direct impact and influence on her practice. Performing with musical theatre and choir groups, alongside her background in theatre design, is increasingly having an influence on the work she is now making.