Exhibition: Vier Manieren van Werken (Four Ways of Working)

Exhibition: Vier Manieren van Werken (Four Ways of Working)

Wageningen, a university ‘city of Life Sciences’ in the eastern Netherlands, is putting up a Culture Summer. Each week there will be a new exhibition in De Grote Kerk (Great Church) in the pedestrianised centre, amidst the weekly markets.

Next week, I’ll be taking along my collection of altered compost bags and Veencultuur related drawings. I’m proud to be showing work alongside Kitty Doomernik, Bert Hoekstra, and Laurens van der Zee – and am enjoying all the different ways of working.

July 14th- 17th

Wageningen Grote Kerk (Wageningen Great Church)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Working as an artist towards ecological restoration

How can I as an artist work with environmental themes? In this lecture for students of Nature Conservation, I give some context about art and also peatlands, before describing some ways I have engaged. As an artist I do not work in a linear way. I need to become aware of how I am influenced by the words and concepts around me as I develop a visual and symbolic language. Aesthetics are culturally shaped, but also individuals vary in how they interpret things. I suggest further reading and mention a few UK/NL based artists working in diverse ways with a commitment to both conservation, and what the humanities can offer.

Watch presentation here (contact Kate for Vimeo password)

 

Dear Agricultural Policy Maker

Created for the RE-PEAT Anthology, a collection of personal messages to Members of the The European Parliament. This is a creative campaign to make peat-friendly policy in the new Common Agricultural Policy.

RE-ENCOUNTERING at RE-PEAT festival

As artists we  were proud to present together at Peat Fest. This was an informative, energetic, and diverse 24-hour global online event organised by RE-PEAT.

Kate Foster and Pantea Shabahang.

Watch the presentation here.

Un-finishing Stories: creating remote connections to wetlands | By Kate Foster and Pantea Shabhahang

Being an artist and being in quarantine, she did what artists have always done — make wonder out of limitation, privation, and boredom; illuminate the universal through the tiny aperture of the deeply personal.

Maria Popova, April 2020

Maria Popova poses a challenge for artists working within Corona restrictions. I had to find different ways to develop my initial response to the Home Turf and Wetfutures projects during my residency in Wageningen University.  I compared notes with an Iranian artist friend, Pantea Shabahang. This post is about beginning to work creatively with the fragments of wetland lives and cultures that we are uncovering, suggesting this is a process of ‘un-finishing’ stories.

See full article here.

An Interview with Kate Foster

World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces: Kate Foster interviewed by Walter van Teeffelen, for Marbella Marbella

Kate Foster is an environmental artist and researcher. She is from Scotland. In 2020 she developed her interest in peat cultures as artist in residence with the Home Turf Project of Wageningen University. At the exhibition ‘Veencultuur (Peat Culture)’ in Armslag Atelier, in Renkum, she showed various results of her creative investigation. How did Kate end up on the subject of peat culture and how did she report on it through her practice-based research?

Kate Foster: My work takes different forms depending on the context. I capture the process with drawings and text. My projects have resulted in works of art, but also created networks, in which connections have been made between ecology, sustainability and creative practice…

See the full interview here

Or in Dutch, here.

Galloway Glens: Plumbing the Depths of a Bog

Plumbing the Depths of a Bog (contact Kate for Vimeo password).

Read a review of the event from the Crichton Carbon Centre here.

What does the Bog mean to you? Places of mystery and haunting beauty, places of culture and diversity or even a place of danger?! Whatever you call them, on the 28th of April we will delve deep and find facts, myths, tales and truths! Presenting 5 speakers covering communities, art, ecology, archaeology and language:

Kate Foster

“Peat is a brilliant way to explore Galloway landscapes! I’ll show some ways my project Peat Cultures takes inspiration from different kinds of knowledge about peatlands, such as archaeology and land management.”

Dr Michael Stratigos

“Peatlands and other wetland have been part of dynamic landscape, influencing and influenced by people, in Galloway since the last Ice Age. My brief talk will highlight how peatlands themselves preserve unique traces of that history and how mapping the changes to peatlands (especially those occurring in the last 300 or so years) can throw light on both the past and the future.”

Dr Emily Taylor

“I will be taking us on a quick whistlestop tour of the technical aspects of peatland restoration and some of the techniques we are using to return peatlands back to their wetter natural state. From peat dams to stump flipping, and everything in between!”

Jayne Murdoch
“I will give you an overview of the Peatland Connections project and pose the question “what do peatlands mean to you and what value do they hold for us all?”. We are looking for people to get involved in the discussion and rediscover this beautiful landscape through arts and culture.”

Prof. Thomas Owen Clancy
“In my talk I will look at some of the words people in the past have used to name peatlands, in the various different languages of the Galloway Glens (Brittonic, Old English, Gaelic, Scots). I will ask what we can learn from place-names about peatlands—from how they formed part of estates to locating lost bogs.”

 

 

UK Anthology Series: Peatlands and Forestry (Splot & Splat)

Watch Kate’s presentation Splot & Splat from 32:50- 50:50.

“…we wanted to do something celebratory, theatrical, fun and also something that other people could visually engage with, something that would catch people’s eye and make people wonder what was going on and then hopefully be driven to look a bit deeper at the background.”

Join us to pick apart the complexities of peatlands and forestry in the UK! Following the EU Anthology, RE-PEAT is running a UK Anthology Series. There will be 10 sessions with each session connecting peatlands to a different intersecting topic, such as local social justice issues, environmental issues and/or a specific UK or international policy. This is the second episode of this exciting series! In this session we will explore how peatlands and forestry interact in the UK. As such we will explore:

-Why both peatlands and forestry are important tools against the climate crisis

-The history of planting trees on peatlands and why this is detrimental to the natural world and to environmental aims

-Why only planting trees should not be treated as a panacea

-Some campaigns that have advocated for peatlands not be planted on some forest-to-bog restoration projects

As usual there will be plenty of visuals and creative elements involved – sure to be a fascinating session!

The Fragility of Flight

Preview for the group show “The Fragility of Flight” will be held on Friday 26th April 2013 at 7:30pm and will feature a talk by Andrea Roe. Artists include Andrea Roe, Takaya Fujii, Dalziel+Scullion, Claudia Losi, Steve Dilworth, Cheryl Field, Anne Corrance Monk, Kate Foster, Edwyn Collins, Deirdre Nelson, Michelle Letowska, Sophie Morrish, Anne Rabbitts, and Jon MacLeod.

Show includes the exhibition, events, screenings and residencies from the 27th April 2013 – 27th July 2013.

Supported by The Year of Natural Scotland 2013

The Fragility of Flight