Katy Connor

This summer I've had the incredible opportunity to collaborate with staff at the Wolfson Bioimaging Facility, based at the University of Bristol. Our primary focus of study has been on plants and their intricate cellular activities, made possible through cutting-edge and powerful microscopes.

It's fascinating to delve into the hidden world of plants, gaining invaluable insights into their biology and unraveling the mysteries that they hold.
 This residency is part of a larger-scale project titled "Practicing vegetal curiosity in arts and social sciences." This ambitious undertaking has been made possible through funding provided by the UoB Brigstow Institute, showing their dedication to advancing the boundaries of interdisciplinary exploration. One of the project's key collaborators is Dr. Franklin Ginn, a Cultural Geographer who brings a unique perspective to our investigations

This residency offered a unique opportunity to create a HydroPoetic techno-garden within a real replica of a Martian House. Considering plant life within this context, the research project ‘Growing Liveable Worlds: Ethical encounters between human and plant life’ - is a new collaboration between myself, Cultural Geographer Dr Franklin Ginn, Professor of Ecology Dr Jane Memmot MBE, academics and PhD students from the University of Bristol. The research has been generously supported through the Brigstow Institute and Dept of Geographical Sciences, UoB.

Building a Martian House is a public artwork and collaboration between Ella Good & Nicki Kent, exploring what it means to live on Mars. Through doing so, the project providies a lens on how we can live sustainably here on Earth. It provides a critical framework to consider questions regarding materials and resources used in hydroponic systems.

The Martian House was situated on MShed Square, Harbourside, Bristol from July-October 2022.

I was invited as part of a group of ten international artists, to spend two weeks in Santa Caterina, Salento, Southern Italy by the curator Dores Sacquegna and PrimoPiano Projects, Lecce.

During the summer Europe has experienced a wave of high temperatures and drought, and this region of Italy was no exception. I was drawn towards the vegetal beings and plant life of the region, and I made a series of drawings that responded to the scorched nature reserve of Porto Selvaggio.

All the artists’ works were celebrated on the last day, with The Earth Talks: a performance event and feast of local foods, inviting regional artists.

As part of Watershed’s Spring Residency programme I’m currently developing a speculative arts project around practices of hydroponics: the art of growing plants in a water-based, chemical solution, without the use of soil.

Hydro-Poetics: Hydroponics as an Experimental Poetic System

The idea grew from my residency at the BioDesign Institute, Bristol University where I was exposed to the ways in which synthetic biologists wish to re-engineer aspects of nature. This, together with my experience of lockdown at my Bristol allotment, led me to reflect upon the narratives surrounding synthetic biology, soil degradation, use of finite resources and the precarity of fresh food in urban environments.

Through this residency I’ve been constructing experimental hydroponic systems and inviting audiences to co-explore the relationship between nature, technology and the value of hydroponics as both an ecological and artistic practice.

I spent three weeks on a remote residency in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard during the month of October 2015: a twilight time where the hours of daylight rapidly give way to the Polar Night.

Travelling with a small group of international artists and scientists aboard the Antigua, we sailed around mountainous islands: a protected territory of glaciers, polar bears and sea ice, with very little contact with the outside world.

The Arctic Circle residency programme

Skumring (Twilight) 2021
16mm film frottage and exposure to ice, snow, rock, fjord, glacier, made during the residency.

Field recordings of hail, wind and underwater ice sheets were made by sound artist Shirley Pegna, onboard the same residency programme in 2018.

Outlandia is an off-grid treehouse in Glen Nevis, Lochaber, Scotland. The cabin is located in a copse of Norwegian Spruce at the foot of Ben Nevis in the Scottish Highlands.

I spent my time in Outlandia considering the organic networks and forms of transmission ever-present: the sunlight, signals and the invisible networks of tree roots and branches.
Giving form to these, I experimented with placing mirrors in the landscape, to reflect light as organic broadcast signals and illuminate aspects of the environment…

Reflecting Ben Nevis is a hypothetical project: my attempt to reflect the sunlight from Outlandia, across the valley to the other side of the Glen, the audience being the multiple climbers attempting to scale the mountain.

Outlandia website

Outlandia is curated by artists London Fieldworks (Bruce Gilchrist & Jo Joelson) and Tracey Warr. Designed by Malcolm Fraser Architects, Outlandia is inspired by childhood dens, wildlife hides and bothies, forest outlaws and Japanese poetry platforms.

The Centre for Additive Layer Manufacturing at Exeter University is an engineering research laboratory working with different industrial print processes and materials.

I worked with CALM to build a series of six sculptures using a laser-sintering process, where fine layers of Nylon 12 powder are melted (sintered) by laser. The residency lasted a period of 18 months.

Initiated by Exeter Phoenix through their Media Arts Bursary, with additional financial support from Santander and Bournemouth University Graduate School

‘Synthesis: synthetic biology in art and society’ was a 10 day intensive exchange laboratory at UCL Centre for Synthetic Biology Research.

Hosted and facilitated by Arts Catalyst, and led by artists Oron Catts and Daisy Ginsberg, artists and scientists collaboratively explored synthetic biology's ideas and techniques, and its social and cultural implications. Participants were selected through an international open call.

https://www.artscatalyst.org/synthesis-synthetic-biology-art-society