

OPEN STUDIO WITH PLANTS
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10am -6pm, 16 - 18 June, 2022
WASPS STUDIOS, PATRIOTHALL / STUDIO G1 + GARDEN / EDINBURGH / EH3 5AY
This Open Studio Weekend partners with plants to cultivate our creativity and connection to the non -human world. Encouraging a coming together to discuss and be curious about our place in the biosphere at this time of climate urgency.
** Please also join us for a conversation in the round with specialists at:
6pm on Friday, 17 June, 2022
Invited guests include:
VICKY ALLEN - Senior Features Writer, The Herald
STEVEN + FFION BLENCH - Chalk Plaster
FIONA HOUSTON - Founder and SeaEO, Mara Seaweed
LUCINDA RIVERS - Director, Unicef UK
SARAN SOHI - Senior Lecturer, Edinburgh University Biochar Research Group
ROBERT YOUNGER - Solicitor, Fish Legal
Director, Scottish Creel Fishermen's Federation
Clerk to The Argyll District Salmon Fishery Board
Conversations will also be encouraged at all times during the Open Studio.
Plants are for sale to raise funds for environmental projects in the community.
Creative works are for sale to support their maker’s creativity whatever way they need.
DRAWING DOWN THE SUN EXHIBITION
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Drawing Down The Sun - Close-up of Biochar
'A hotel with a free mini bar for micro-organisms'
Lithograph on Paper, Alison Grant, 2022
The 24 Collaborators are a wide range of people from chefs, writers, artists, allotment holders, gardeners, people from fossil fuel, food, marine and creative industries, as well as children. Each Collaborator has contributed to the Open Studio Exhibition something they have created related to our biosphere (without using any materials specifically purchased for the intervention), to be displayed in the Exhibition along with the plants they have nurtured.
Plants have been propagated by division of a garden or houseplant and grown in reclaimed pots, without adding herbicides, pesticides or fertilizer, avoiding the environmental impact associated with the horticultural industry. The plants growing medium is compost containing Biochar and Seaweed. Plants capture carbon and produce oxygen to sustain all life on earth. The Biochar sequesters CO2 for up to 1000 years, conserves water and provides a free hotel with mini bar for thousands of tiny soil creatures in its cellular organic structure, improving soil biodiversity. The harvested seaweed frond tips have provided shelter and food for marine creatures, and drawn down CO2 by their rapid growth fuelled by sunlight. Their parent plants continue to do so while creating an oxygen rich microclimate, in the sea, to help protect marine creatures from our warming oceans. Increasing climate resilience and marine biodiversity. Seaweed growing and the production of biochar are ancient practices that can help facilitate the natural regeneration of bio-diverse, resilient ecosystems.
We welcome anyone interested in using this model for their own community project.
Please talk to us if you would like support in doing so.
With thanks to Carbon Gold and Damhead Nursery
- Please click on an image below to view -














