A Vacant Space residency with a Vision of Nature

During Covid-19 a group of artists in Hastings and the surrounding area have been looking and thinking about nature. It’s been all around us during this transformative time; our landscape is changing around us, a time cut off from a familiar community while nature lives on.

Linda Williams, developing artwork

These artists have been offered a vacant space from Axisweb, a supportive cultural network for UK-based artists. They’ve been given this opportunity to collaborate together for the first time after Covid.  During lockdown the only natural spaces some of us have been to are back gardens, with wildflowers, plants that are often considered invasive and problematic but are also amongst the richest pollen producing plants.

Covid-19 seems extremely resilient – a spherical structure, it appears alien, perhaps unnatural to us. It’s easy to forget that we are also part of nature, not separate from it. Everything is connected and although there is an apparent hierarchy only a slight imbalance disrupts the whole.

Amanda Jobson, Vision of nature, cyanotype print, 2020

These artists have explored native wildflowers, in their process of artworks, important for species pollinators, which feed on these wild plants, marigolds, clover, meadow buttercup, cornflowers, flora richly found in natural meadows, and verges. These wildflowers are vital to support, enabling a food system to function and grow producing good fruit and vegetables.

The development of these artists’ artwork began at home in their natural habitat, in their garden, and now the process is taking place as a residency, collaborating together, supporting each other’s idea in this vacant space taking place over August at Priory Meadow Shopping Centre, Hastings.

Their process will be shown online via Axisweb network, inspiring others to share and show a vision of nature in development of connected ideas themed together of artworks, as lockdown eases.

The artists are: Amanda Jobson, Sharon Haward, Paula MacArthur, Mary Hooper, Clare Whistler and Linda Williams, working in different art practices, from camera-less photography to clay forms, drawing, painting and installation.

Please come and take a peek – we are very happy to engage with the public. The gallery is opposite the Vodaphone store in Priory Meadow and is open every day except Sunday from 12 to 4pm throughout August. You can find out more at the art rabbit website.