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Spring updatez

I have five announcements that have flipped my year upside down, and I couldn't be happier to put them into the world. Freelance life has been draining and fallow for two years, like repeatedly farming in dead soil with nothing but a trowel. In changing tact, turning away from reactivity, I can now apply organic matter to my own soils in layers that will slowly rot and release nutrients, create new habitats for emotional biodiversity, and mulch and protect the spirit.

I am confident that in taking on these opportunities I can challenge myself to work in new ways that respect the complexity of art production within the context of the climate crisis, while keeping clear and honest channels of communications with individuals and organisations that work in dynamic and responsive ways.

The Beans

Firstly, I have a my first UK solo exhibition, ‘The Beans’, opening at Two Queens, Leicester on Fri 26 May, 6-9pm and running until 15 July.

Poster by Sam Jones

“The Beans” is a new installation by artist, writer and gardener Sean Roy Parker, developed for Two Queens, in association with Stanford Hall CSA. This project explores convivial food growing, permaculture living systems and low-tech resourcefulness as ways of cultivating collective mental and physical wellness in the climate crisis. Parker expands our understanding of what constitutes art materials while testing alternative ways of making, consuming and processing that minimise environmental harm and build interspecies intimacy.

As far back as the early 1600’s Leicestershire people were known by the nickname ‘Bean-Bellies’, alluding to local subsistence farmers’ reliance on this crop that was widely considered animal feed, for their own nutrition. In a book of Leicestershire dialect from 1848, Leicester Words, Phrases and Proverbs, it was suggested that if you “shake a Leicester man by the collar, you shall hear the beans rattle in his belly”, suggesting bellies that contained beans and little else. This project seeks to build upon these historical ties with the land, and suggest how cultural spaces might be more attentive to urgent contemporary challenges, as active sites of enrichment and digestion.

Beans are central to both the exhibition’s ecological narrative and material offering, with varieties gathered from specialist growers, local seed swaps and postal donations from friends. A nursery built from scrap and surplus matter will house a succession of germinations, due to be passed on to neighbourhood growing spaces to mature and fruit over the summer. Assemblages for worm composting and heating seedlings will utilise post-consumer waste collected from online peer-to-peer networks, as well as a collection of live ferments and fertilisers influenced by Korean Natural Farming. Parker will redirect scraps from studio holders towards intentional decay, expanding visible material lifecycles and closing energy loops. As initiated by the artist, the exhibition will be powered with temporary solar panels and rainwater harvesting, installed as Two Queens seeks to transition towards more eco-responsible energy management.

The project is accompanied by a series of public workshops and events including practical sessions on composting, ink making, and producing recycled paper, as well as a panel discussion centering questions of food sovereignty. At the end of the growing season, a community meal will bring the artist together with participating growers to taste the crops and share seeds for the future.

Parker spent a research period living and working at Stanford Hall CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), an experimental farm model in Lutterworth, south Leicestershire, which specialises in growing organic produce, actively building soil microbiology, and providing community training in agro-ecological practices. Here the artist researched the recurrence of beans in historical food traditions and modern subsistence farming, and wrote a new ecosystemic fiction to accompany the installation.

This project is made possible by public funding from The National Lottery through Arts Council England.”

More info here - https://2queens.com/exhibitions/sean-roy-parker-the-beans/

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With, For, About

I have been invited to contribute to the 2023 edition of Heart of Glass’ WFA as an interlocutor and workshop leader. Happening on Thurs 25 May, 10am-5pm at the site of Incredible Edible in Knowsley, Merseyside, the day of collective activity themed around ‘Care & the Commons’ will see local and international practicioners commingle and share their research through interactive sessions and a communal lunch, with particular attention paid to eco-responsible methodologies and accessible language.

I look forward very much to also recording a podcast with Fran Disley to contextualise our offerings to WFA and find praxical threads in our work.

https://www.heartofglass.org.uk/project-and-events/events/with-for-about-2023

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Wysing

I have been selected as one of Wysing’s residents for 2023-24, upon suggestion of Tammy Reynolds and Jesse Darling. I will be taking up a period of research and gardening at the end of the summer.

http://www.wysingartscentre.org/whats_on/residencies/2023_residencies

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Metroland Cultures

In March I was selected for a commission to create a permanent public artwork in St Raph’s Edible Garden by a panel of residents as the final contribution of curator Eliel Jones’ Brent Biennial 2022 programme “In the House of My Love”, in association with Sufra NW.

“Roy was chosen by the staff and community of Sufra Foodbank and Kitchen - who’ve spent the last six months meeting for a series of workshops led by A’lshah Waheed, to explore how an artist might work with them to address an important desire within their daily lives. Together, this group decided to commission a permanent artwork for the St Raphael’s Edible Garden site - and selected Roy to create it!

Roy’s proposal centres around building a Bioregion Activity Centre: a glasshouse made of reclaimed windows and discarded wood to be situated on the plot. The glasshouse will have hold many second-hand tools such as binoculars, flower presses and contact microphones, for visitors to use as they explore their relationships with the nonhuman life in the garden - including resident birds, wild plants and microbes in the compost - in slow, curious ways. 🐌🐛🌱🍁🍄”

https://metrolandcultures.com/whats-happening/programmes/brent-biennial/

Allotment Club

In August I will be taking a train down to Falmouth and camping out at Georgia Gendall’s ACE-funded community gardening project. I will be writing a text about interspecies intimacy on sites of food growing to be published by Common Table, and running a workshop for local schoolchildren on inventing slogans to cheer on our invertebrate friends while they build soil.

https://allotmentclub.org/

https://thecommontable.eu/