12 November 2010

Artist takes up residency at Dundee Botanic Garden

Visual artist Sarah Gittins has taken up a year-long residency at Dundee Botanic Garden that will continue until September 2011.

Sarah was awarded a Master of Fine Art degree from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, part of the University of Dundee, earlier this year. She works across a variety of media, with a particular focus on drawing, printmaking and painting.

During her time at the Garden, she will be making work that explores the story of plants as food, with particular reference to contemporary and future challenges relating to food sovereignty and food security.

The residency represents a collaboration between the Botanic Garden and Dundee Artists in Residence (D-AiR), an organisation that profiles the work of Dundee-based artists, celebrates Dundee as a city of culture and creativity, and fosters links between artists and the wider community.

Sarah said, 'I am delighted to be working with D-AiR. The residency is a wonderful opportunity for me to look into the issues surrounding the food we eat, where it comes from, how it is grown, transported, processed and sold.

'The sustainability of our globalised food systems are very much up for question, particularly as we all become more aware of the joint issues of climate change and peak oil. I hope to make work that explores the different voices within these ongoing debates and look at how some of the processes surrounding the food we eat may change in the coming decades.

'The Dundee Botanic Garden is a perfect setting for this residency as so many of the plants that grow here play important roles in the story of food. It is great to be able to think and work whilst grounded by their company!'

Sarah’s residency is part of D-AiR’s year-long programme of arts activities and events taking place throughout the city. She will be making work within the Gardens and will have an ‘open studio’ on the first Thursday of every month, from 12-3.30pm. Visitors are invited to come along to these sessions for conversation and to see work in progress.

Her work explores issues of social and ecological justice, with a current emphasis on the embodied awareness of climate change. Her most recent drawings and prints create a space where the ordinary activities of everyday life encounter incidents of environmental concern, thus allowing the viewer to reflect on issues often pushed to the edges of consciousness.

Alasdair Hood, Curator at the Botanic Garden, said, 'We have strived for many years for an artist in residence and at last we have one. Sarah is looking at issues associated with food and food crops and sustainability. If she can get visitors to think where their food comes from then I will feel we have achieved something from her time in the Garden.'

More information about Dundee Artists in Residence can be found at (www.d-air.org).

To contact Sarah, email, sarahjgittins@gmail.com. She is writing a blog to accompany the residency, and this will be regularly updated with artwork, research and related discoveries. It can be found at (www.byleaveswelive.wordpress.com).

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Grant Hill
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University of Dundee
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