I make materials with wild plants from my allotment that are removed to maintain biodiversity. Some are rehomed to ‘spread the wild’, others are made into inks and pigments, pressed and dried or processed as biomaterial ingredients.
Biomaterials suggest new possibilities and are reframing my thinking around success and failure, stability and collapse. They are unbounded in their potential use and purpose. I don’t see them as replacements for extractive or problematic materials, this is not my goal. Building connection and community through the development process is where much of their value lies.
Research and Material Innovation
Field Horsetail Bio-Material
Material developed for hand modelling, moulding and 3D printing.
I have been developing a biomaterial using clay and Field Horsetail (Equisetum Arvense) a common plant descended from the prehistoric Calamites, much of which became coal in the Carboniferous period. Field Horsetail’s unusual physical properties are hinted at in its historical common names such as pewterwort, scouring rush or gunbright. Gardeners hate it because they can’t get rid of it due to its deep root rhizomes, however, the deep roots bring nutrients from the depths and don’t negatively impact the 6” of soil most of our crops grow in.
Field Horsetail’s evolution, historical use, contemporary attitudes towards it and material properties are a rich context for conversations around use and value, climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Iterations of the 3D printed material have challenged me to consider what success looks like, how we can prepare for structural collapse, what we can reformulate from unanticipated outcomes, how we can accept the unknown.
Collaborative Learning
Becoming Earthly
Barn Arts, Aberdeenshire, 2022
Collaboration with Alys Fowler (writer & horticulturist) in an online experimental learning space exploring what it means to be in ‘a fragile temporary state, dependent on natural systems’. Part of the selection process required that we wrote a question to bring to the group. Ours was ‘How can we rot the ego?
Talk and Community Engagement
Spreading The Wild
Highbury Park, King Heath, 2023
Wild plants that are abundant, spreading or out-growing my plot are either potted-up to be transplanted or made into botanical inks and pigments. In this case we ‘spread the wild’ to a neighbouring park with a group of ‘Friends of Highbury Park’ and volunteers. The park has created a large wild flower meadow, is restoring a pinetum, making woodland paths accessible and has a vibrant community orchard and bee-keeping area. We spoke about ‘wild tending’ to increase biodiversity and community.
(wild tending is anything that protects, spreads or builds wild spaces, their plants, invertebrates and mammals)
Collaborative Workshop
Speculative Materials
STEAMhouse Birmingham, 2024
Selected for a three-day future scoping workshop, exploring alternative material futures within the context of the climate emergency and local urban landscapes. We formed collaborative teams in response to 1 of 3 imagined scenarios in the future. Our material explorations were presented in a temporary exhibitrion. I began by thinking “when does the future begin?”
Workshop
Scrolling the Hedge
Woodland Games; Civic Power; Civic Square; National Trust; B&BC Wildlife Trust
Using botanical inks, a large scroll of paper and a display of ‘natural treasures’ this workshop has been commissioned as a drop-in activity in public space, for closed groups during intensive planning workshops, as a space for reflection and to support conversations around climate anxiety.
The simple magic of botanical inks, plants and slowing down to make with our hands is hugely restorative and highly flexible in supporting individuals and groups in a range of situations.
Exhibition
Girls that Geek
Midland Arts Centre and STEAMhouse, 2024
STEAMhouse invited me to display my work with wild plant derived biomaterials, particularly my Horsetail Biomaterial, at a careers event aimed at encouraging girls into science-based careers. I wanted to show that passions and interests can lead innovations, that art and science are not separate and that much of scientific knowledge comes from the kitchen and the hedgerow.
Exhibition
Material Matters
STEAMhouse at Birmingham Design Festival, 2024
STEAMhouse invited me to display my Horsetail Biomaterial research as part of Birmingham Design Festival. Always exciting to hear responses to wild plant magic.
