We are delighted to announce the arrival of Catriona Gallagher to VARC as the next artist to take part in the multi-partner programme ENTWINED: Rural. Land. Lives. Art. Initiated by VARC, this programme explores, through artists’ practices, different aspects of what makes a ‘place’ and aims to reveal the interconnectedness of rural land and lives. Catriona will spend the next 10 months living and working at VARC’s base at Highgreen in rural Northumberland.
For the past few years Catriona has been based between the UK and Greece. She often works with plants and is interested in traces in architecture, origins/placehood, overlooked histories and the subjectivity of voice. In 2019, her first medium length film Perdikaki was released, which follows the prolific but overlooked weed pellitory-of-the-wall/περδικἀκι growing in the urban environment of Athens, Greece. For the ENTWINED residency, she is likely to be working in moving image alongside drawing and writing:
Over the ten months in Northumberland, I will be researching perceived categorisations of the natural, manmade and wildness. I will be looking at systems of knowledge, control and management of nature locally, identifying such traces in the landscape alongside more collaborative practices and rituals performed on the land. Working with local people will be key and I’m hoping to develop collaborations with performers to include local voices, dialects and bodies.
Mapping such patterns, whether physical or informational, will constitute my beginnings in drawing and writing, which I anticipate will progress into moving image over the course of the residency. I plan to begin with an open ended approach to the Ecology of Place and see what strikes me as pertinent and holds my interest when immersed in the locality. Catriona Gallagher 2020
Due to the current situation, we will not be hosting our usual open studio event, but we will certainly share more from Catriona and her plans for the residency over the coming months. In the meantime, you can read more here.
Image: Catriona Gallagher. Perdikaki (2019) 37 minutes, HD video still