This September, we're pleased to share the work of Becky Lyon, an artist whose practice unfolds at the meeting point of ecology, politics, and the senses. Working across tactile objects, sensory installation, moving image and sound, Lyon's approach is both playful and probing, rooted in a deep engagement with the more-than-human world and a desire to rehearse more equitable ways of living within it.
Becky is an artist, PhD researcher and London National Park City Ranger of mixed English and Jamaican heritage. Her practice explores the politics of ecology, particularly in England, and the possibilities of art in rehearsing more equitable and liveable worlds. She is interested in sensory and bodily knowledge as a way of reclaiming our relationship to place, and her work takes the form of tactile objects, sensory installations, hand-made moving images, audio experiments and publications.
Her recent projects give a sense of the territory: investigating notions of Britishness through the spread of the 'invasive' Muntjac deer, a heat-reactive installation inviting visitors to embody the uneven distribution of rising temperatures, performances for London's polluted waters, and a pop-up cafe surfacing our relationships to soil and water. She also runs Ground Provisions, a 'schooled-by-the-forest' for adults, and The Department of Artecology, a space for transdisciplinary conversations in the conservation sector.
Touch Me Not
So much of our relationship with flowers is now dominated by the visual. Supermarket roses are bred to look fabulous but smell of nothing, and few of us can resist the lure of the perfect cherry blossom selfie. Touch Me Not invites you to look at plants, or not, otherwise.
Tucked into a hidden-in-plain-sight greenhouse space in the gardens, the exhibit takes the form of an unruly herbarium of experimental photographic objects and tactile invitations. Here, plants refuse to come into focus. They offer partial views and invite you to 'see' with your other senses.
The space accommodates one person at a time and is a photo-free area, open on selected days across September. Western science has long assumed a right to access, know and name plants. Touch Me Not asks whether it should, and what it might mean to encounter a plant on its own terms.
Exhibition tickets will launch nearer the time. Subscribe to the OmVed newsletter for updates.
An Unruly Herbarium: Experimental Plantography Workshop
Saturday 19 September, 11.00 to 13.00
Join Becky for a mindful (and mischievous) morning of experimental plant photography, exploring the themes of Touch Me Not with your hands as much as your eyes.
Using direct-to-photo-paper and other cameraless techniques, you'll create a set of curious revealed-and-obscured plant images. This is less about crafting a perfect picture and much more about noticing the things we ordinarily miss when we're snapping for Instagram: embracing happy accidents, exploring processes and honing attention to detail.
Workshop tickets are on sale now. Book your place here.
Find more of Becky's work at elasticfiction.co and on Instagram at @elastic_fiction
