Big Botany | Artist-in-residence spotlight: Ackroyd & Harvey

For the exhibition "Big Botany: Conversations with the Plant World", the Spencer Museum’s major exhibition that explores humankind’s deep connections and fascinations with the plant kingdom, English artists Ackroyd & Harvey were in-residence at the Museum to create site-specific artwork.

Reflecting the themes of Big Botany, the artists created two photosynthetic portraits, in which grass seed is left to sprout under the light of a photographic projected image for about a week. This results in a detailed print of the projected image on the sprouted grass. Ackroyd & Harvey’s powerful, larger-than-life grass portraits often portray environmental activists. For their portraits at the Spencer, they collaborated with local activists. Another work they created references Dr. Ranil Senanayake’s “Satanic Formula,” which expresses the rise of greenhouse gasses at the expense of oxygen caused by human activity.