Multidisciplinary
Anna Seymour
Background
Anna Seymour is an early career artist who is living and working between Darkinjung land, Central Coast NSW and Wiradjuri land, Molong NSW. Her work explores non-extractive forms of relating to the natural world during a time of ecological devastation. Seymour completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours) in 2022. She is currently an educator at Gosford Regional Gallery and Studio Artes; a creative centre for peoples living with disabilities.
Seymour’s expertise is situated within drawing and walking practices which embrace an environmentally sensitive approach to materiality. Her current research investigates how organic materiality can be diagrammatic; to demonstrate processes of symbiosis and collaboration across ecologies. Seymour completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours) in 2022, which was funded by the Orange Regional Gallery Jump Start Arts Grant Program. She has been a finalist in a selection of awards and exhibited across Wiradjuri (Orange), Gadigal (Sydney), Darkinjung (Central Coast), Awabakal (Newcastle) and Darug land (Blue Mountains). Seymour has been involved in collaborative based projects, including the feminist eco-based group ‘Gathered’ who create paper-based work from recycled papers, funji and native plants. In 2023, she partook in Cut N Polish at Carriageworks, Sydney and exhibited as a ‘New Futures’ recipient at the Other Art Fair, The Cutaway, Sydney. In 2024, she will undertake a residency program at Farm Studio in Rajasthan, India, to aid research of sustainably harvesting pigments from plants for textile dying.
How does your work engage and consider the environment, different sites and ecologies?
Seymour locates ways of relating to the earth that do not seek to take, extract or commodify the environment. She uses walking as a primary methodology for developing knowledge of the intrinsic entanglement between human and non-human beings (plant, animal and material). It is this witnessing of interconnection among ecologies within a specific site that she aims to document through materiality. Seymour holds a circular approach to materials, intending to leave minimal trace and impact upon the engaged site.
Experience with this Country/place and the thoughts it has evoked in you?
As a new acquaintance with the site, I am unfamiliar with its symbioses, flows and rhythms. Understanding a specific ecological place requires long durations of time and repeated witnessing/listening. It cannot be expected to retrieve knowledge from a site or nature to reveal itself when desired; the natural world requires a slowness and dictates when to share its entangled complexities. Therefore, it is critical to collaborate with diverse knowledge holders who have grown a companionship with the site over extensive time – First Nations, local human residents, ecologists, creative thinkers… Understanding place holistically requires diverse voices, human and non-human. Retrieving knowledge from a site additionally entails equal giving and receiving. What is taken must be given back; it is a circular existence. Throughout the undertaking of this project, it seems important to partake in symbioses, meaning knowledge and materials taken from the site must be met with an equal return.
Experiences with intertidal areas, the ocean and connections you've forged with country.
Having been raised in inland regional NSW, my experiences of intertidal zones are limited. However, through ongoing witnessing, I am slowly learning of the complexities and ecological companionships which inhabit intertidal areas.
What holds particular significance for you in/about Neilsen Park country and Bottle and Glass Point?
Seymour is particularly drawn to seaweed, a vital component in marine systems that provides food and habitat for diverse aquatic life. Seaweed aquaculture further positions itself as a potential aid in the climate crisis, holding uses as food, biofuels and fertilisers. It is important to recognise that First Nations have a deep and diverse traditional knowledge of Australian natural resources, including seaweed. Through Seymour’s research for the Rockpools project, she considers sustainable and ethical methods of ‘extracting’ seaweed as a material for artistic purposes.
How do you create spaces for contemporary leadership, learning and collaboration with other people and the environment?
My work positions as an offering, an offering of the artist’s witnessing – a singular perspective and understanding of the natural world. Through offering documentation of my witnessing, I hope to invite other people to share their experiences – to facilitate an exchange of ecological knowledge and contribute to a wide-spread consciousness of immediate non-human inhabitance (plant, animal and material).
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Floorplan Studio is based in Cadigal country, part of the Eora Nation nowadays referred to as Sydney, Australia. The Gadigal People are part of seven clans in the Eora Nation and have an extensive culture, ecology, stories and songlines unique to their region. Floorplan pays respect to First Nations people and their Elders, Past, Present and Emerging.
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