AWAKE was an exhibition reflecting on the ancient past and the possibility of a greener future. From the Great Green Wall across West Africa to the rewilding of the Atlantic Rainforest up and down the West Coast of Scotland to conservation and rewilding of the Indonesian forests, our future must be one of respect and love for a resurgent nature. Meanwhile, the ancient oak forest which hosted the meeting of these three artist creators, holds so many echoes of an ancient past when similar forests stretched across much of Scotland and folk survived and flourished by working with and within them. These three contrasting practitioners, Andrea Dow through poetry, Anthea Spivey through photography and Grace Siregar, through mixed media, were all reflecting on the environments they have grown up in and their hopes and fears for the future.
Dow’s poetry takes us down under the forest to her imagined world where grief and hope exist alongside each other entwined amongst the forest roots. Spivey takes us to people she has grown up and lived amongst in Senegal and draws attention through her photography to the need for acceptance and understanding between people, in this case people with albinism. In Siregar’s work, she invites you to explore the interaction between nature and the world of modern materials and how we need to heal our relationship with the natural world.
Bringing their contrasting histories with them, Dow from Bute, Siregar from Indonesia via Senegal and Spivey from Australia and New Zealand via Senegal, the Balnakailly Woods brought them together in an intriguing trio of media and styles through their poetry, photography and installation art.’
https://www.buteforest.org.uk/news/awake-roots-exhibition
