tHrive

I was artist in residence at Greenhill Arts in 2018 / 2019, during the ‘Growing Dartmoor’ project, part of a larger project looking at ‘growing’ in the local community. The project supported three artists in residence, community art workshops and other related activities over the two years, beginning with a seed swap and culminating in a grand community feast and an exhibition ’tHrive’. My aims were to explore these themes of nature, growing and community, and to use alternative photographic techniques to capture this. I became increasingly fascinated with where the food for the project was being grown and who was growing it. Noticing people’s greenhouses and polytunnels and how they were showing each individual grower’s personality, I began to photograph growing spaces and the growers in and around Moretonhampstead, using the wet collodion process (ambrotypes). This project became an ideal opportunity to combine my passions of gardening and photography. This project was funded by the Lottery and by Arts Council England.