Edwina fitzPatrick: UK-based art activator




My mission is to invite you to "re-view" the environment – to take a second look at it. I create visual stories (fabulas) about the ecology, nature and culture of a place through exploring mortality and love. This love might be for the loss of a human being, a mycelium network, or a felled tree. Everything living is destined to die, but on what timescale? An oak might live for a millennium, a human a century, an insect for a few days – yet they all coexist in the same space and immediate moment of interconnected reality.
Whilst being raised in a culture embracing western literary narratives, my practice is inspired by global majority approaches to fabulas – ones that are cyclical, speculative and rooted in giving voice to the voice-less. So, what order could this speculative narrative be told? The Anthropocene asks us to think chronologically – moving from beginning to end, but these visual fables might start in any part of time – jumping back and forth within a chain of events. Sometimes the viewer/participant determines this in the work themselves.
I use interactive fieldwork as my working methodology. This involves layered onsite research, celebrating narratives and conversations that are deeply grounded (sometimes literally) in the histories and the specific qualities of a place. These inclusive projects engage with the value systems and priorities of local individuals because they are experts in where they live and work. I also collaborate with experts across a range of disciplines, including horticulturalists, biodiversity experts, engineers, architects, perfumers, foresters, archivists and composers.
The artworks on this website represent a small selection of my practice, encompassing both sited projects (as permanent or temporary works) and work presented in galleries. The two are not mutually exclusive. I completed my AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council) funded collaborative practice-based PhD about sited artwork and climate change in 2014.

Website copyright: Edwina fitzPatrick 2022