Flora Gregory
As a socially engaged artist, I look at the human-nature relationship and at our increasing dislocation as we become urbanised, and the role of the imagination and story telling in transformation.
As an artist-maker, I am attracted to found objects. I am drawn to organic materials such as sheep wool, Jurassic limestone, hay and straw, the fabric of the Cotswolds. I also work with everyday objects, sometimes things which are taken for granted. I am doing a series, Second Life, using discarded metal, creating ‘metallic skins’ which respond to the light and wind.
Socially Engaged Work:
‘Nature Rights’ (2018-ongoing) is a collaboration with Natalie Koffman (Gregory and Koffman). It is an invitation to explore the human relationship with nature through time, discuss whether nature should have rights and how this would affect us in our daily lives, and what the world would be like if we recognised the rights of nature.
'The Map Room: What Do You Wish for the Wychwood Forest ?' (2023) was held at the Wychwood Forest Fair, people shared their answers on a board for others to see.
'The Map Room: What's Your Favourite Place in the Wychwood Forest ?' (2021) was held at the Wychwood Forest Fair, people put their answers on a board to share with others.
'The Map Room: Public Rights of Way' (2019) invited the local community to mark on a map of the Wychwood Forest where they walk. The map was at Wilcote Art during Oxford Artweeks and at the Wychwood Forest Fair.
'The Map Room: Living and Working' (2018), invited people to mark on an OS map of the Wychwood Forest, where they lived and where they worked. 150 people took part. We found that few people have working connection to the land.
The ‘Map Room’ started as a three year collaboration with Nimmi Naidoo and Katie Hellon, and the project continues.
‘Do You Have a Special Relationship With An Other Than Human ?’ (2018 - ongoing ) invites a sharing of other people’s experiences, and through discussion explores our own individual Special Relationship to Nature, to An Other Than Human.
‘Come and Lie in the Hay’ (2017) is an invitation to do just that. It was held at the Wychwood Forest Fair and was the beginning of a long relationship as Artist in Residence with the Wychwood Forest Project. While lying in the hay, there is time to reflect on the loss of our relationship with the land over the last 100 years, and the loss of 97% of our wild flower meadows since WWII. Intensification of farming methods – ploughing, drainage, reseeding, and fertiliser and herbicide, has resulted in an important loss of habitat for a huge diversity of wildlife.
Other work includes 'Health and Well Being Dispensary' and ‘Join Us In Mesopotamia’.
Inspirations: Thomas Berry, Hildegarde of Bingen, Rachel Carson, Cormack Cullinan, Suzi Gablik, James Lovelock, Robert McFarlane, Maya Lin, Chief Seattle, Shelley Sacks.
