Flora Parrott

www.floraparrott.com

Flora Parrott is a practice based researcher  working primarily in sculpture and textiles. The work looks at notions of the subterranean, experiences of darkness and the restructuring of the senses. Although, perhaps, the work may not immediately appear to be concerned with underground spaces, thinking with the subterranean has become a way of working. The subterranean landscape provides a framework through which to study behaviours and structures on the surface: Thinking through the unknown, lostness, shelter and geologic time frames. 

In 2014 she collaborated with Professor Paulo Boggiani resulting in an installation in the Museum of Geology, USP, the project also comprised of an evolving ‘workspace’ and lecture space at Projeto Fidalga, SP. Parrott’s connection with geography began in 2016 as artist in residence at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS-IBG) collection developing a project titled ‘Swallet’ studying caving and exploration of the underground, funded by Arts Council England. Based in the Geography Department at Royal Holloway since 2016, initially as Leverhulme artist in Residence and then as a Techne PHD student, the artistic practice is informed by contemporary thinking in geography and the geohumanities. Recent projects have experimented with the conference format; co-ordinating interdisciplinary, thematic events.

Parrott trained  in Printmaking at Glasgow School of art and the Royal College of Art, the practice is still rooted in the techniques and approaches of printmaking workshops; using materials and processes as a way-in to making. The work is inherently collaborative, often developed with other artists and academics. A collaboration with South African writer, Lindiwe Matshikiza was shown at Eastside Projects, part of Sonia Boyce’s ‘In The Castle Of My Skin’. This rolling project began with a trip to visit an evolutionary biologist in Germany.