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Images courtesy of the artist: Fionn Duffy, 2022
"We're really excited to be welcoming Fionn as our first Artist in Residence this April. For us, hosting this residency represents the culmination of several years of work and planning, and we can't wait to see Fionn's creative responses during her time here."
- Clive Brandon & Julie Plumridge, BIPA
Photo credit: Clive Brandon 2021
"The garden would not be a garden we would recognise now without boundaries (an inside and an outside), or a ward (a gardener to make it so). The chronology of the English words gardener -> garden (n.) -> garden (v.) confuses dominant narratives surrounding the role of anglophone humans and our plant directions. The way we learn seems to start with nouns, and so the logic of our learning has been to define first the place that is enclosed, then what is done in that enclosed space and finally who might do what is done. (garden (n.) -> garden (v.) -> gardener). We begin with property and end with relationships, whereas the etymology suggests a different order."
- Fionn Duffy, extract from residency blog
"I stand on the sidelines. We all do, forming a ring around the kitchen garden. Alice reads O Noblissima Viriditas in Latin, a language none of us understands, and I am reminded of Hildegard’s own unknown language: Lingua Ignota. I forget the names of the plants in the bed, but I forgive myself since they’ve likely been renamed countless times and whichever names I’ve forgotten (Chickweed? Borage?) they are certainly not the names the plants use to call on each other."
- Fionn Duffy, extract from residency blog
Photo credit: Kirsten Body, 2022
Fionn Duffy became involved with Circus Artspace in April 2022 as the recipient of the Seed Bed artist residency at Black Isle Permaculture and Arts (BIPA); where she spent three weeks in an off-grid eco cabin sited in the organic permaculture garden in Kilcoy.
Supported by Creative Scotland, Circus Artspace in collaboration with BIPA facilitated an open call in early 2022 resulting in Fionn being selected for the residency. Three weeks living within the wooded permaculture garden enabled her to explore the question “how does a permaculture approach to land and integration with the arts give an alternative understanding of how we might relate to our surroundings? And why is this important now?”.
Fionn approached this through the creation of anthotypes utilising materials from the the garden. Members of the community were invited to a reading group event facilitated by Fionn at BIPA, which served as an opportunity for Fionn to share research material and processes relating to her residency.
About Fionn
Fionn Duffy uses objects, video and text to create spiraling narratives that explore ethical and ecological concerns at stake when considering the porous relationship between bodies and material. Often working in collaboration with artists, enthusiasts and researchers, and always teetering on the edge of failure, she re-frames cultural, mineral and historic research, bringing it into confrontation with current systems of production, ownership and ontological wrangling.
Fionn graduated from an MFA at Glasgow School of Art in 2020. Recent work includes A Mineral Dance: Or How To Become Glass, a research project exploring the 18th century kelping industry and 20th century nuclear industry in Caithness and their legacies on our coastal regions through an attempt to make glass out of seaweed and sand. She considers practice as a continuous act of learning from material, landscapes and people. This means that every piece of work becomes a collaborative endeavor, be it with other humans, living beings or minerals.
https://fionnduffy.co.uk Instagram @fionn000
We had an amazing response to the open call; from artists working in a wide range of artforms across Scotland. This made the selection process challenging but incredibly interesting and humbling to read of the wealth of experience. We would like to thank everyone who took the time to apply for the Seed Bed residency.
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