Eva Brá Barkardóttir

During the residency, Eva explored the potential of natural dyes made from foraged plants and seaweed, using the surrounding landscape as both a source of materials and a starting point for research. Through collecting, processing and experimenting with different organic matter, she investigated how colour emerges from place, and how it can be extracted, transformed and preserved. The process was led by curiosity, play and a willingness to embrace uncertainty, allowing unexpected results and material failures to become part of the research. Alongside these practical experiments, she began exploring local folklore, traditional knowledge and the magical associations of plants and the natural world. Eva was interested in how stories, rituals and beliefs shape our understanding of the landscape, and how these forms of knowledge might offer alternative ways of relating to our environment. This research opened up connections between botanical practices, ancestral traditions and the unseen forces attributed to particular plants and places. The residency provided valuable time to work intuitively, follow unexpected lines of enquiry and develop a closer relationship with the local ecology. Rather than seeking definitive outcomes, she embraced an open-ended approach in which experimentation, observation and imagination could coexist. The experience has expanded her understanding of natural materials and will inform my ongoing exploration of ecological relationships, folklore and the intersection between material processes and magic.

Eva Brá Barkardóttir is an Icelandic artist based in London. She holds a BA in fashion design from Iceland Academy of the Arts (2012) and an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art (2021). She is a 2020 recipient of the Chelsea Arts Club Trust grant. Eva is the co-founder of In-house Art and Elm, as well as being the founder of Anddyri Reykjavík. In-house is a curatorial project showcasing early to mid-career artists' work at True House in London. Elm is a female-led floral and horticultural design collective and Anddyri is an experimental pop-up art space. Eva is a member of Seed 2065 a collective, a radical futurist artistic experiment focused on developing alternative hopeful narratives about future ecosystems, and creating a nonanthropocentric language for this future. She was recently part of the Bow Arts 30th anniversary exhibition at the Nunnery Gallery, an exhibition with D Contemporary and Cream Athens in central London as well as Collectivism at The Bomb Factory Art Foundation in Marylebone.