Earlier this week I went to a free art workshop hosted by Open School East. Open School East is a combination art course/residency and students are required to organise public art workshops. This time environmental artist Fiona MacDonald aka Feral Practice was the visiting artist. There was a talk about ants and fungi and the aim of “meeting with animal/plant/place through the processes and reflexivity of art”, and then we went out into a local park with a woodland area to do some classic sensory/location art activities. Here are my sketchbook pages and some snaps from the day.
We went out into the woods and did a classic blindfold perception activity.
Here’s Rosie‘s descriptions of the leaves and twigs she was feeling while blindfolded.
Rosie’s description of cut grass, and my tree-stroking experience.
We had five minutes to assemble something and give a presentation about its extreme artistic significance. There is only one correct angle to view this installation from (via the lens of society, bowed to the ground). If you view it from other angles, you’re perceiving it wrong. Alternative perceptions are not allowed in the gallery and you will be expelled.
We feathered our own nest.
Examining the world through a loupe.
Jemma ponders life as plastic waste. What a waste of a dinosaur to make a Morrison’s ready meal tray. (Thanet has a really bad litter problem)
Lichen is a team.