In partnership with the Lancashire Wildlife Trusts’ Carbon Landscape Partnership, four artists; Jayne Seddon, Sally Gilford, Joe Ford and Natalie Linney, have been commissioned to deliver site specific projects intended to connect children, families and schools with their local green spaces.
We're excited to introduce you to the lead artist and her three collaborators as well as give an insight into their practice and how they are contributing to the project.
Jayne Seddon
Jayne Seddon is an artist, educator and creative producer. Her socially engaged practice explores ways to connect people with places. This usually begins with a walk. She’s been commissioned for over eighteen years by public health, conservation, cultural and education organisations, both internationally and across the UK.
Jayne is Artist in Residence at LIPA, The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, Primary and High School. She has worked collaboratively with the school and a range of cultural partners to develop an innovative programme of art for the last six years. Her practice sits at the intersection of Ecological Art, Climate Action, and excellence in Arts Education.
‘I am delighted to work with Lancashire Wildlife Trust on The Carbon Landscapes Project! Their work to transform the post-industrial landscape of Lancashire into vast well connected areas of wilderness, supporting habitat restoration and community health is amazing. I’m excited to connect the children of Leigh St Johns Primary School with the wildlife at Pennington Flash. They’ll be exploring the popular nature reserve, using various recording methods and ways of looking to create wonderful field studies.’
Where to find Jayne:
Natalie Linney
Natalie is a Manchester based artist and educator working with textiles, form, pigment & print.
Using nature to create her work, she utilises ancient dyeing techniques to make site specific prints documenting environment & heritage. She is interested in fusing traditional crafts with modern design & technologies wishing to preserve these approaches whilst making them relevant to current times. Her work is rooted in exploring current, historical, environmental & anthropological topics and engaging people to take ownership over their spaces.
In this project, Natalie will be exploring the native moths of Bickershaw country park. Working with a local primary school they will forage the area, creating work based on the transformation of space and of its inhabitants.
Where to find Natalie:
Sally Gilford
Sally Gilford is an artist, socially engaged practitioner and creative producer. Her participatory approach encourages the exploration of multi disciplinary art forms to encourage self-expression and creative experimentation. Process led artistic collaboration is at the heart of her practice.
She works with people and communities to connect ideas and creativity to place, identity and heritage. With a background in surface design and print, her work is bold, playful and inquisitive.
For this commission, Sally will be fighting for the visibility of the lesser spotted bittern with her ‘Smitten with Bitterns’ campaign. People will learn about this remarkable booming beauty and its habitat through connecting with nature and printmaking at Wigan Flash and beyond.
Where to find Sally:
Joe Ford
'I am a creative practitioner trained in traditional, analogue photography, bookbinding and print making. I have worked in the community for over 12 years, running visual arts sessions, foraging workshops and teaching people of all ages the traditional techniques of bookbinding and photography. Nature is my inspiration throughout my life and I run vegetable growing sessions on a council site and I am training to become a qualified medical herbalist in my spare time.
I will be working with a school and the wider community to engage with their local wild space using the medium of photography to allow us to open our senses and deepen our observations of the biodiversity that co-exists around us. These moments in time will be captured on 35mm film and shot using manual film slr cameras which the participants will have the opportunity to learn to use.'
Where to find Joe:
Keep an eye on our social media to find out how you can get involved with Wild Ways over the next few months! 🌿
Part of Wanderland, in partnership with Lancashire Wildlife Trust, Carbon Landscape Partnership and Wigan Council. Funded by The Deal and The National Lottery Heritage Fund.