Moseley Blue Artist Residency

Moseley Blue was an artist residency in Moseley Park and Pool, Birmingham

In the spring and summer of 2022 I undertook an artist residency in my local park. Moseley Park and Pool an urban green space in the heart of one of Birmingham's neighbourhoods. The residence project was self initated and developed in response to the COVID pandemic following long periods of isolation during the lockdowns. It provided space to gain a deeper connection to my local green space and the natural environment, whilst also thinking about climate change.

I used the cyanotype alternative photographic process as a tool to explore the park and as part of a mindful practice. The park as areas that are wooded and a lot of the natural habitat is left to grow freely. During the spring much of the park was full of cow parseley (Queen Anne's Lace) which became a key part of the work making large prints on silk.

Cyanotypes being exposed to the sun in the park on silk. I pre-treated fabric at home and bought the dried panels into the park where I lay them on the ground placing the cow parsely exposing them for around ten minutes (no contact frame was used).

Once the cyanotypes were exposed I placed them into light protective bags and took them home to wash under tap water. The fabric is then dried and over forty eight hours the deep prussian blue is fully exposed.

I took the silks back into the park and hung them to photograph them in the trees capturing the light as it flickered on them to try and capture the spirit of the park.

The park also has a lot of ferns work in this way outside I was able to make some really large prints using the fern leaves printed on textured Fabriano 5 watercolour paper.

The artist residency in the park provided a beautiful setting to run a series of cyanotype workshops and a pop up exhibition where people could learn about the cynaotype process by making their own botanical photograms.

The project received support from Arts Council England see featured cyanotype works from the residency and video short on the artists page here.