Lauren Saunders

TOPLINE SUMMARY:

I tell stories about nature and our relationship with it through drawing, sculpture, installation, written word and performance, using humour, imagination and climate hope to help people connect with the natural world and feel empowered to take meaningful climate action.

I am interested in decolonising ideas of nature and building nature kinship within underserved communities, often making work focused on equitable inter-species collaboration and accessible, participatory storytelling that makes space for joy as well as urgency.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

I am a Hull-based visual and participatory artist working collaboratively with people and place to help both human and more-than-human communities tell their stories about nature and the climate crisis, often using humour, play and climate hope as entry points into complex or difficult conversations.

My collaborative practice is rooted in cultivating radical compassion, kindness and kinship between humans and the “more-than-human community” - a concept that emphasises the importance of non-human beings within our ecological and social landscapes. I build upon old folk traditions, superstitions and land-based belief systems to weave stories that help us understand and reconnect to our more-than-human kin, often finding that humour and shared storytelling can be a powerful tool for disarming fear and opening dialogue.

I believe my role as an artist is to respond compassionately to place and people, share skills, reflect experience, translate meaning, and ultimately amplify voices from within our expanded community. I believe that transformational change happens when people are able to reframe their relationship with the Earth, moving away from extractive power dynamics towards reciprocal care, and that hope and imaginative fun are vital tools in making that shift feel welcome and possible.

I take an interdisciplinary and emergent approach to making that blends art, ecology, storytelling and social activism. I work across participatory practice, workshops and events, temporary sculpture and land-based installation, experimental drawing, text, ceremonious meaning-making, and intimate ritual or performance.

I frequently work in co-creation with people to share skills, ideas and altered perspectives that nurture kindness towards the natural world, and with more-than-human communities to advocate for their agency and rights within human-led climate conversations. I work to a firm ethical protocol and use natural, biodegradable and/or sustainable site-specific materials in the production of work.

I practice through the lenses of class, feminism, disability, play, climate hope, resilience and solidarity. I am influenced by a wide range of environmental research and eco-sociological practice, including Traditional Ecological Knowledge, environmental philosophies and ethics, permaculture practice, conservation science, foraging and growing, nature-based folklore, ceremony and ritual explored within my own Anglo-Irish ancestry, climate activism, and my own direct experience of ‘listening’ to the Earth.

I am also the Co-Director of arts project The Critical Fish, and the Arts Lead for Hull and East Riding Friends of the Earth. Additionally, I am a musical theatre and cabaret performer, through both community theatre and my on-stage alter ego, Ruby Moon.

I am a disabled, queer, working-class woman, living in a northern coastal city marked by socio-economic deprivation and heightened vulnerability to the impacts of the climate crisis. 

These intersecting lived experiences shape how I understand place, precarity, accessibility, and resilience - informing the urgency and perspective of my practice.