tHrIVE: our community and the flora of the moors

tHrIVE: our community and the flora of the moors  

This generous and inspired exhibition at Greenhill Arts in Moretonhampstead features newly commissioned works by Nicky Thompson, Amy Shelton and Angharad Barlow. They have been working with the community throughout 2018 and 2019 as part of Green Hills Arts’ Dartmoor Vision and Growing Dartmoor Project. 

Nicky will show her new series of atmospheric Ambrotype images of local growers’ glass-houses. Using the Victorian Wet Collodion technique, where the images appear on glass plates, Nicky has documented the diverse and very personal glass buildings situated in gardens and allotments across the town.  Amy has created a bespoke light-box artwork Anthology: Moretonhampstead Herbarium, made from a unique collection of pressed flowers which were gathered across the seasons by the community of Moretonhampstead, to be permanently installed in the local Health Centre. The artwork celebrates  the biodiverse flora growing in the town’s hedgerows, gardens and allotments.   

Angharad will exhibit her visionary giant covered willow skep ‘The Bee Temple’, part of her work committed to educate and involve human communities in bee life, and to bring about better understanding of how ‘they’ are more like ‘us’ than we care to imagine. The exhibition will also include a unique beeswax composite artwork created by pupils at Moretonhampstead Primary School and a series of individual botanical artworks made by residents at Coppelia House in workshops led by Amy. 

All the artworks in this exhibition reflect the rich culture that surrounds the growing of agricultural, wild and cultivated plants across the allotments, parks, gardens and hedgerows of the wonderful ancient town of Moretonhampstead. Interdependencies between young and old, human and non-human is what the tHrIVE exhibition is all about.