I carry you in my eyes: chant of the whale swan
I am an artist and filmmaker and completed my foundation year with the wonderful Seed Sistas last November. During that time, I began my deeper journey into the intuitive world of plant medicine.
Together with artist collective Fourthland (Isik Sayarer and Eva Knutsdotter), who I have been collaborating with over the last year, we have been inspired to bring some of our ideas and learnings related to the world of plants into our art practice.
This Summer, following a Spring artist residency down at Kestle Barton gallery in Cornwall, we will be returning to lead a series of public workshops and create new film and installation work for our Autumn exhibition.
This project will bring to the surface the role of myth and symbolism to expand upon ideas of interconnectedness and what it means to be human, using processes of craft, film, herbalism and sound to produce a series of blessings that resonate across human, plant, animal and ethereal worlds.
Our journey will be accompanied by plant wisdom and ceremonial offerings to bring people from different cultures together, including the 8 Syrian families who we have been working with in partnership with Cornwall faith Forum.
During our March residency, we gathered gorse flowers to make gorse tea and share the beautiful yellow flowers at our performance-based gatherings. Gorse is a plant that brings hope and positivity used to bring strength and to re-connect with the soul. We also collectively foraged for garlic in the woods as the Syrian women recounted their memories of gathering herbs in the mountains back home for their children. We harvested nettles, cleavers, and dandelion in a pot and ceremonially poured over water, and bathed people’s feet with the herbs to cleanse and renew.
During the August public programme, an ‘Encircling Centre’, housed within a spherical form on the land at Kestle Barton will host a series of Summer gatherings and workshops.
Our activities will include making a rose balm to cultivate openheartedness and to strengthen the heart. The balm will be used to collectively anoint ourselves and objects within the structure, which will be aligned with the Apollo ley line that links sacred sites across Europe to the Middle East. Through this and other workshops, people will collectively inhabit and imbue the space, exploring the symbols carried within and between them, and symbolically send energy across the line.
As part of the public programme, we will also be creating natural plant dyes within a large cauldron to dye both cloth and 16mm film, the resulting tones conveying the healing vibrations of plants and colour.
Each process will imprint into film and sculptural works for the artists’ Autumn exhibition.
For more information, to book on a public programme workshop visit, or to participate in our 16mm film visit the Kestle Barton site here.
