Lauren Saunders (she/her)
Hull
I’m a Hull-based visual and participatory artist-researcher who is interested in platforming more-than-human voices to help drive equitable climate action.
I believe that transformational change will happen when enough people reframe their relationship and power dynamic with the Land, and thus my collaborative practice-research centres on expanding the definition of ‘community’ to include the more-than-human through the cultivation of radical compassion, kindness and kinship with the natural world.
I typically use natural, biodegradable and/or sustainable site-specific materials to collaborate with (both human and more-than-human) communities, exploring biodegradable sculpture and land-based installation, natural processes and phenomena, experimental ‘line’ and ceremonious meaning-making, storytelling and ritual/song-based performance.
I work through the lenses of class, feminism, disability, climate hope and interspecies decolonisation, but I am influenced by a wide range of interdisciplinary practice and research, including: environmental philosophies and ethics, Permaculture practice, conservation science, local climate activism, foraging and growing, ritual and ceremony, indigenous cosomologies/Traditional Ecological Knowledge from my own Anglo-Irish ancestry, and my own direct experience of ‘listening’ to the Earth. There’s lots of things that feed my practice!
I also co-founded and continue to co-facilitate an arts journal and project called The Critical Fish (www.thecriticalfish.co.uk). Fish is all about making critical writing and thoughtful conversations about art and visual culture more accessible and inclusive. We typically do this through printed mags/zines, online articles, workshops, groups and community-based projects.
I joined UNION in 2019 originally as part of the first cohort and it was so good for my confidence, contextualisation and practice that I stuck around and became a 2023 cohort participant as well! ‘Fraid to say that UNION ain’t ever getting rid of me at this point…
I’m always open to exciting collaborations (and even half-ideas)… so if you’re up for a chat, please don’t be shy and just get in touch!