As part of my final major project for an MA in Art, Health & Wellbeing I have come up with a bonkers plan to grow a meadow indoors, in a gallery space.
This blog is going to document the project, hopefully the success! but possibly the failure, we shall see.
The idea behind the plan comes from an interest and general investigation into people’s connection to place, access to land, and ideas around health and wellbeing and connection (or disconnection) to nature.
My current research is involving working on a participatory project called ‘Fire, Earth, Art’ with people who have long term mental health issues, getting outdoors, communing around a fire, making drawing charcoal, paint from natural earth pigments, paper from plants and wood block carving. The project aims to connect people more deeply with their local landscape and natural resources and build community connections.
I recently exhibited at West Wharf Gallery in Cardiff as part of the MA. I showed some drawings I had made from my local landscape in the Forest of Dean made from ochre pigments I had collected and processed, and charcoal we had made on the fire Earth Art sessions. In thinking about the white sterile gallery space and how to convey a sense of my recent processes, connecting people to land and nature, I decided to bring a piece of land into the Gallery space.
https://nicholagoff.org/2018/06/12/recent-work-from-a-makers-dozen-exhibition/
I exhibited the bit of land along with a photo etching of all the legal documents, leases, agreements and ownership deeds that go with that particular piece of land. I aimed for people to experience the living breathing ecosystem in front of them, made brighter and more alive in such a white, sterile environment, and think about how we have lost connections to land and place and the strange relationship we have with it now, attaching rules, regulations and ownership.
I felt it worked well. I loved the experience of seeing it in the gallery environment… and so the Gallery K4 meadow project has been born.
I am studying on the MA Art, Health & Wellbeing at The University of South Wales, I am also the Printmaking technical instructor. As MA students completing our course in September we have access to the studio/gallery spaces over the summer period. All the studio spaces become the gallery as often happens in art school and so I have identified this unique opportunity to create an installation over a couple of months in a space that is large and just happens to have massive windows in the ceiling, making a very convenient greenhouse.
The plan is to fill the entire floor space with a living, growing piece of land.
