2:00pm-4:30pm on Sunday 30 March
Times shown are in GMT (UTC +0) up to the 26th March. For events on or after 27th March times are in BST (UTC +1).
Phoenix Room 1, New Museums Site, Downing Street, CB2 3PT
This interdisciplinary workshop explores the intersection of literary ecocriticism and participatory art through the creation of "botanical biographies" - cast impressions that combine physical plant matter with literary texts. Participants will engage in a hands-on process of creating plaster casts of plants while incorporating literary quotations, resulting in pieces that give material shape to the relationship between nature and text.
Drawing on Johanna Drucker's concept of "material textuality" (2006), the workshop interrogates the traditional boundaries between literary and visual art. By physically inscribing literary quotes alongside botanical impressions, participants create palimpsests where natural imprint and human text coexist, challenging established nature-culture dichotomies. The optional inclusion of braille text further expands the tactile and accessible dimensions of this exploration.
The workshop culminates in a collaborative narrative exercise where individual plaster pieces become "pages" in a larger environmental story. This collective assembly emphasizes ecological interconnectedness, as participants discover and articulate the threads linking their individual botanical biographies into a broader tapestry of environmental storytelling.
Through this hands-on engagement with materiality, text and nature, the workshop offers a unique platform for exploring contemporary ecocritical themes while creating enduring artistic artefacts that embody the complex relationships between literary expression and the natural world.
Daniela Dora is a literary scholar based in Cambridge. She is an affiliated lecturer in German Studies at the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics and Director of Studies in Modern Languages at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge.
Stepanka Facerova is an award-winning visual artist based in Cambridge, UK. Her work encompasses painting, sculpture, video, and installation art. She graduated with distinction in MA Fine Art from Cambridge School of Art at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.
Mansi Shouche is a multimedia artist based in Cambridge, who moved to the UK from Mumbai, India nearly 20 years ago. Using nature as a central focus, she explores topics such as identity, culture, ecology, science, memory, and connections in her work.
