SolasArts is an Arts Education Platform which is ecologically centred. We are committed to intrepid thinking and motivational communication. We Curate Events/Projects, working with our Creative Network of practitioners and educators.
We operate a creative axis of events between Cornwall and London, offering a range of talks (physical and virtual) workshops, fieldwork and bespoke sessions. We are experienced in curating/composting tansformative, learning experiences through cross-disciplinary collaborations.
We are committed to: Explore, Create, Educate. Making-with/becoming-with (sympoiesis).
Founded by arts educator Lizzie Perrotte and visual artist and environmentalist Andy Hughes, SolasArts has a core team of Event Curators: including artists and educators with diverse specialisms.
Dominica Williamson, gathering, sensing and picturing perceptual and natural data as part of her Leverhulme Artist-In-Residence at the University of Plymouth’s School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences.
Lizzie Perrote
My praxis is centred on the creative design and programming of collaborative learning experiences. I am passionately committed to environmental ethics, drawing from current ecocritical debates and trans-disciplinary ecological practices. I am motivated to develop new forms of ‘diffractive’ education, engaging art and expanded forms of aesthetic experience to help sustain living within environmental predicament.
I am a specialist in Arts education, trained art historian, museum educator, experienced teacher and manager in Higher Education as programme director of postgraduate programmes. My educational ethos is founded on ‘open learning’ using Visual Thinking Strategies, inductive, object-based forms of study. In addition to working as Director of SolasArts, I am currently studying Environmental Humanities at Plymouth University for ongoing subject and pedagogical research.
My career in Arts Education developed within a public Museum context as Higher Education Officer at the National Gallery in London; Head of Education, Tate St Ives; Head of Education, Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. In Higher Education I have worked for many years at Christie’s Education London as Programme Director of M.Litt in Modern and Contemporary Art and Programme Director of MSc in Art, Law, Business. I am a Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy.
Research specialisms: PhD research on attitudes to race in Britain, refracted through artistic primitivism of Jewish sculptor, Jacob Epstein. I write and lecture on a wide range of art education, art historical subjects although I have particular specialisms in modern and contemporary art and art theory.
I am a regular contributer to London Art Studies online platform providing insight to upcoming events and exhibitions in London Lizzie's London. I have also contributed short educational films on various art topics.
https://londonartstudies.com
Andy Hughes
I studied in Fine art at Cardiff University before receiving a scholarship to study photography at the Royal College of Art, London. My work explores the littoral zone and the politics of plastic waste. My book titled Dominant Wave Theory includes essays by world leading scientists, published by Booth- Clibborn Editions & Abrams, New York, marks this exploration. I was the first Artist in Residence at Tate Gallery St. Ives and reserve residency artist for the Arts Council England Antarctic Survey Fellowship. I support various non-profits such as Surfers Against Sewage and The RAWfoundation and I am an affiliated artist with the Plastic Pollution Coalition (Los Angeles). My work has been featured in various broadcast and print media including the BBC, National Geographic and the Guardian Environment.
In 2013/14 I was invited to Alaska as one of three international artists and seven scientists to work on the project ‘Gyre: The Plastic Ocean’. ‘Gyre’ was the worlds first project that explored the integration of science and art to document and interpret the issue of plastic pollution in the marine and coastal environment. Togethe with Mark Dion and Pam Longobardi I worked in conjunction with scientists from NOAA, including author and ecologist Carl Safina. A National Geographic film, exhibition and book was supported by the NOAA, Smithsonian Institution, Rasmusson Foundation and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and others.
"In Andy Hughes’ hands a discarded water bottle can have the visual impact of a Dale Chihuly glasswork. In a sense, the knowledge that these pieces have been abandoned lends them a mystique and melancholy that objects of desire could only dream of having. Andy Hughes is a singular voice showing us something uncomfortable yet sweetened by the beauty of the image. This is something most great artists aspire to and Andy is, in my view, well on the way to carving an important place for himself in the top rank of photographers."
Sir Tim Smit, The Eden Project Co-Founder KBE
https://www.andyhughes.net/
Ben Street
I am a freelance art historian, educator and writer. I've written several books on art history for general readership, including ‘How to Enjoy Art: A Guide for Everyone’ (Yale University Press, 2021) and a children’s book, ‘How to be an Art Rebel’ (Thames and Hudson, 2021). I have worked as a schools and family educator for the National Gallery and Dulwich Picture Gallery, London and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and as a lecturer and workshop leader for Tate and the Royal Academy. I have written interpretative guides (audio and audiovisual) for major exhibitions at Tate, the National Gallery and the Royal Academy.
I am a contributing writer and critic for Art Review, Apollo and the Times Literary Supplement, and was the co-writer and presenter of ‘Duchamp’s Urinal’ for BBC Radio 4. I recently organised and chaired a panel on Philip Guston at the Freelands Foundation.
https://freelandsfoundation.co.uk/event/talk-the-unteacher-philip-guston-and-pedagogy-as-practice
My website is at https://benstreet.co.uk
Dominica Williamson
I am an interdisciplinary artist, who works in the field of sustainable design with a focus on new materialism. I work with co-production methods to empower people. I am most inspired when working outside, and when looking at how communities view landscape and cope with change. For instance, I have co-created visual research methods for the project Coral Communities and Ruritage.
Currently I'm co-developing a pilgrimage project on common land near my home, which is under threat from deregistration. I was recently awarded an Agritech grant to co-develop an arts-sci prototype in Cornwall. It is set to archive what people will feel about post brexit farmland; the work is reaching transdisciplinary realms.
I was awarded a Leverhulme Artist-in-Residence Grant with Dr. John Martin of the University of Plymouth. During this residency, I shadowed the University’s’ Masters programme in environmental consultancy and co-developed novel data gathering methods. In the past, my final masters project was completed and published in Rethinking Maps: New Frontiers in Cartographic Theory, London: Routledge (2009).
https://www.ecogeographer.com
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