Sarah Gittins very kindly took part in an interview to discuss her work and the project Dundee Urban Orchard which she runs with artist Jonathan Baxter. Dundee Urban Orchard is a project that supports individuals and artists to plant and care for small scale orchards in the city. Artistic workshops, such as print making and batik collaborate with gardening to explore the content of the project. You can find out more about Dundee Urban Orchard on their website: dundeeurbanorchard.net
What compels you to use images of climate change in your work?
I really became personally aware of the reality of climate change in 2007 due to a number of factors, including the first Edinburgh Transition Town meeting. After that, making work that didn’t in some way address or acknowledge the crisis felt like being in a state of denial. I feel compelled to bridge what often seems a disconnect in our world – between an awareness of both the beauty and fragility of the natural world, the environmental crises we face and the juggernaut of business as usual.
Do you think that the use of climate change images in your work encourages people to act on climate change?
I see the images I have made as a space where the reality of climate change and environmental issues, so often pushed to the edges of consciousness, can be brought into the here and now of awareness. I think that images can do this effectively because they leave you room to have an experience – they don’t force a message. Of course this means they can also be ignored, but if they are taken notice of I think they can be effective. In this sense they are tools of awareness raising rather than encouraging direct action. However, if you are aware of something and don’t shy away from it it’s hard not to act on that awareness. It’s the not shying away from it that’s the difficult thing – I do that all the time!
In 2010 I was artist in residence in the Dundee Botanic Garden, making work that looked at issues of food sustainability through the lens of a single crop – rice. During this time I began to grow frustrated with the limits of image making. Now I divide my time between studio practice and working with my partner on a socially engaged art project called Dundee Urban Orchard (DUO), which is an art and horticulture project, looking at issues of food sustainability and reimagining Dundee as an Orchard City, working with different communities and organisations to plant and care for a network of 24 small-scale orchards.
Working with people and making ‘real’ interventions into the world through DUO, however small, is nourishing and creates a sense of hope. This work is in turn feeding into my studio practice. DUO will end in 2016, after then I would like to maintain the balance of a reflective studio-based practice and active interventions.
The use of monochrome is seen distinctively in your work, is there a reason for this?
I love colour! The trouble I have with using colour in my work, however, is that it always becomes the main preoccupation. Deciding to stick to black and white was a liberation, it meant I could focus on the content of the images and the energy of marks – the colour of black and white.
Have you thought of or used environmentally friendly materials in your work?
One of the reasons that I make screen prints rather than intaglio prints is the relative cleanness of the process. However screen printing still uses chemicals – particularly in the processing and cleaning of screens, a lot of paper and a lot of water. I also sometimes print directly onto MDF – which has it’s own problems! I am aware of the contradictions here in the sense that ‘the medium is the message’. I want to make images that are in the world in a physical form. Making this happen has an environmental impact. I would like to minimise this impact as much as possible. This is a process of ongoing vigilance and I need to do more work here.
Are you a gardener?
I love working in gardens and find gardening a tremendous source of well-being. I am a learning gardener. I’ve been learning in great part through trial and error in the garden I’ve lived beside over the past six years. One of the most exciting moments of my life was pulling our first harvest of magenta beetroot from the brown earth. I’m not the most efficient of gardeners – weeding sends me into a sort of reverie.
What was the reasoning between combining artistic practice and workshops with community gardening in Dundee Urban Orchard?
I don’t think there is a clear division between art and gardening in DUO – I see DUO as an artwork in itself. Working with communities and groups to realise the creation and care of a network of 24 small-scale orchards across the city is like creating a gigantic collaborative sculpture – a ‘social sculpture’.
We decided to use more commonly recognised art forms, such as printmaking and batik, within DUO as effective tools for exploring the content of the project with groups. For example we have run a lot of workshops using batik and printmaking to explore orchard biodiversity and to think about the meaning of the words ‘Orchard City’.
What have you learnt from the project that can contribute to your artistic practice?
Primarily I have learnt that working practically through a project such as DUO is essential to sustaining my practice, and that as much as possible I would like to maintain a balance of practical action and reflective image making in my work. I would like to both explore and deepen an awareness of where we are at this time in relation to our environment and to respond to this understanding.
I also think that the reasons I love drawing are closely related to the reasons I love the planting of trees and gardening. They are both about paying attention and entering into relationship with the world. During the process of DUO I have found that my drawing practice has been seeking out and responding more and more to the living, growing, photosynthesising world about us.
Image sourced from dundeeurbanorchard.net
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