Artist Statement

Art-Speak

I am a visual and participatory artist working with drawing, sculpture, print, installation, events and ritual/song-based performance to drive equitable and meaningful climate action.

I believe that transformational change will happen when enough people reframe their relationship and power dynamic with the Land, and thus my collaborative practice-research centres on expanding the definition of community to include the more-than-human through the cultivation of radical compassion, kindness and kinship with the natural world.

I often work in co-creation with human communities to share the skills, ideas and altered perspectives that help to develop nature kinship, and with more-than-human communities to help advocate for their agency and rights within the ( human-led) climate conversation. I work to a firm ethical protocol and use natural, biodegradable and/or sustainable site-specific materials in the production of work.

I work through the lenses of class, feminism, disability and climate hope, but I am influenced by a wide range of practice and research. This includes; environmental philosophies and ethics, Permaculture practice, conservation science, climate activism, foraging and growing, ritual and ceremony, my British and Irish indigenous cosomologies/Traditional Ecological Knowledge and my own direct experience of ‘listening’ to the Earth.

Artist Statement

Plain English

I’m an artist who uses lots of different materials and processes, such as drawing, sculpture, print, installation, putting on events and creating rituals and song-based performance. But everything I make and do is about getting people to care more about the Earth and climate issues, and trying to make change happen that is fair to both people and planet.

I honestly believe that things will change when enough people change how they think about their relationships to the Earth. For example, our society acts like animals, plants, landscapes etc are only valuable if they serve our purpose, and we as a species exploit everything else with such brutality and disdain. But I want to challenge that and help people to understand that community doesn’t end with other humans – our community includes literally every animal, plant, landscape and natural phenomena too. I believe that developing meaningful relationships with ‘more-than-(just-)-humans’ will help us as a species develop the care, respect and kindness that those different to us deserve, and change the world for the better for all of us.

It’s this sort of radical perspective that I’m trying to promote within my art and research.

My research is all about how to best develop this ‘kinship’ within people’s hearts, so I often make work collaboratively with other humans to try and share kinship-developing skills and perspectives. I’m also researching into how to best give those in the more-than-human community a creative platform so their agency, needs and voice can be best heard in (human-led) climate conversations (as well as highlight points of commonality that can help humans to find connection with them easier) – so a lot of my work is in ethical creative collaboration with other species and ‘Beings’ too.

I’m also very interested in understanding how to make art that has a direct positive ecological impact on the environment too – if I’m gonna make something, it might as well be a practical tool for good too!

I create work and experiences that are influenced by my own experiences of being a disabled, working class woman… who gets depressed and immobilized by hearing how environmentally doomed we are. These experiences influence how I make and think about work, but I am influenced by a wide range of things: environmental philosophies and ethics, Permaculture practice, conservation science, climate activism, foraging and growing, ritual and ceremony, ecological folk practices and knowledge-systems/storytelling from my British and Irish heritage and my own experiences of connecting to and listening to the Earth.

 

Research as Practice Statement

  • I use the body and mind itself as a means of doing research.
  • I know through making:doing:sensing. I build through receptivity. I becomeinspired by theory. I analyse using the written word. I find purpose in sharing.
  • I work intuitively, and trust in the process and the directions I’m nudged in (even when it pushes my thinking and boundaries).
  • I need my values to align to my work.
  • I lean into the fact that no research can be done objectively, and instead acknowledge and accommodate subjectivity, emotionality and my own influence on research.
  • I am a creative autoethnographer, working with the non-human to learn new ways of being whilst encouraging the human to experience my research.
  • I believe research can be emotional, therapeutic, personal, and social, AND also rigorous, theoretical and analytical.
  • I believe in the application of research – findings should influence your broader practice.
  • I find value and meaning in a wider lens of the world.
  • I care about accessibility, diversity and inclusion, and artistic research is a way to begin and deepen wider conversations.
  • I consider research to be a political, socially-just and socially-conscious act.
  • My core research is around deepening human capacity to empathise with the non-human