Above are a few images from my current research alongside a small part of our collection of foraged artefacts, old and new, found over the years exploring our varied coastline.
Slow Photography Experiments with Algae | Cyanotypes on Agar
KATIE FOWLIE
Art Specialist | Educator | Forager
current research
I am a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Fife, in the coastal town of Lundin Links. I was fortunate to grow up on the outskirts of St Andrews, with a mother who instilled in me both a respect for artistic expression and a deep connection to the Scottish landscape and the sea. I walk our coastal landscapes every day looking for man-made sea worn treasures, shaped by their tidal adventures, often spanning 100-200 years. I look for clues in these artefacts to uncover untold stories.
I love the powerful connections that art and heritage can stimulate between people. I get great joy from nurturing this process through work and education. Nature and foraging this coastline for many years has always provided a rich source of stories, old and new, defining our place in the natural world whilst caring for and enriching our environment.
Experiment on Kelp | ‘Indispensable’ | Poem by Tom Pow about my late mother, Jennie Erdal
My inspiration comes from the landscape around me, and foraging has become central to not only my artistic practice, but to the life I’ve carved out as a professional beachcomber & art specialist. Being outdoors each day provides the freedom, sensory nourishment and thinking space to devise creative projects and collect the materials I enjoy working with as an artist. I’m constantly drawn to Fife’s sweeping coastline, its ever-changing landscape and the clues it provides to its Industrial Heritage.
I have a (life-long) obsession with beachcombing and well-developed interests in coastal landscape, foraging, 18th/19th century history, and alternative photography techniques from this era. My various personal and professional interests have led to a sound knowledge of local heritage, industrial, social and economic history during the 18th/19th centuries.
I’m very interested in the photosensitive properties of plants and seaweed, specifically Kelp, as a medium to illustrate its role in our socioeconomic history, how it’s shaped our landscape, and how it could mitigate our perilous future. My current interest lies in applying my knowledge of the Anthotype and Chlorophyll photography processes to seaweed in ways that support this narrative.
I’m drawn to the impermanence of natural materials, the shift in our need to possess things, and exploring processes which involve the passage of time in their creation. Slow Photography, sometimes referred to as Living Photography greatly interests me, and the opportunities to play with the living and degrading elements and processes involved with plant based photography, especially when incorporating algae and/or yeast.
For years I’ve been consciously moving towards more sustainable practices in my art, often creating impermanent artworks that will eventually return to the landscape – for example by using foraged materials to create inks, dyes, pigments and photographic emulsions. Some days I’m foraging for scraps of metal washed up on the shores of our historical fishing villages to make botanical inks and dyes; other times I’m collecting remnants of scorched soil along St Monans salt pan shoreline or fragments of brick from Silverburn’s flax mill to grind into rich pigments. I find plants and seaweeds from which to create cordage, chlorophyll photography or green photography (where I substitute chemicals traditionally used in darkroom developing with various plant matter).
When my mother died during the first Covid-19 lockdown, it was hard to find motivation to do anything at all, let alone anything creative. I began using the hour we were allowed outside each day to walk, and I began collecting objects I found – objects that reminded me of growing up. Upon returning home, I began turning these foraged finds into inks, and so began what became a daily ritual of ‘bottling walks’.
Sea worn rusty metal and foraged acorn caps produced beautiful, shadowy greys; red petals produced surprising sea-green hues; berries were transformed into bright, bold colours, barks, plants and mosses into earthy browns and ochres. These inks became an important part of my grieving process and for almost four years now, have sat with me in my studio, slowly shifting and fading in the light. They’ve taught me much about impermanence, the passage of time and what we hold dear.
Also during lockdown, I began foraging for materials suitable for cordage, often with friends. It became a way of sharing stories and feelings in response to the pandemic. I started working with both land plants and seaweed, testing their fibres and textures, their strengths, and their ability to adapt. Both the age-old adage of keeping hands busy and the cordage itself became symbolic of these shared words and stories in which they are metaphorically woven.
The cordage came to represent many things: strength and fragility, permanence and impermanence, the individual and cooperation. Seaweed in particular became central to my work as an artist – both because of its role in Fife’s Industrial past (being used in agriculture, textiles, glass, pottery, soap and paper industries), but also as its potential to mitigate climate disaster. In my recent work, Seaweed has become the vehicle for printing text and images, whilst also serving as a sensory experience.
It feels vital as an artist to continually discover new ways of expressing ideas. As such, I’m very drawn to collaboration and co-creation, finding points of overlap and developing new ideas through this exchange.
The fact that I’m neurodiverse serves as a strength for me in collaborative scenarios. I feel able to quickly find rapport and common ground with others, adapt well to creative problem solving, and see connections between things that others might overlook.
Language is so rich and sensory and layered with metaphor. I’m fascinated by the aesthetics of these sensory layers, the part of language suggested but not completely conveyed using the words alone.
As an artist I’m drawn to materials which can act as a vehicle for texts, but also provide a sensory experience. I’m keen to explore the visual nature of writing and its woven sensory layers.
My mother was a writer and translator, and we grew up in a home full of books and a reverence for the power of the written word. Words were never my main expressive tool, yet language certainly plays role in my practice. For many years I’ve used ‘floriography’ (the language and symbolism associated with plants) in my work, acting as a tool to convey messages and emotions in a non-verbal way.
Other languages (such as the Welsh language) use words to describe the quality of hue, influenced by things such as the sea, the light, or other environmental conditions or weather patterns affecting our perception of colour. As someone very attuned to textures and other sensory prompts, I’m drawn to words which incorporate textures, moisture, light and weather patterns.
I’m driven by my quest for discovery every day when I’m out exploring Fife’s coastal landscape. To me, poetry is simply a different type of landscape to navigate; a landscape just as fertile and open to discovery, and as rich with textures and aesthetic qualities as the literal landscape on my doorstep.
Kelping is said to have started in Fife around 1690 before spreading to Orkney(1720s), then the West Coast & Highlands(1740s). Kelp played an enormous role during the era of ‘improvement’, particularly in the Highlands & Islands. During this time, developments in photography, science, business, fossil hunting each had female pioneers at the helm, yet were prohibited from publishing their work as they were women. Interestingly, these can all be linked back to kelp in one form or another, as so many things can.
I’ve been applying my knowledge of the Anthotype and Chlorophyll photography processes to seaweed in pursuit of these rich historical threads. Building on my knowledge of alternative photography, I plan to focus in more depth on these 19th century techniques to produce a body of site-specific work only relying on foraged plants, water and sunlight. I am also researching the process of kelping, kelp ash, ground seaweed photographic emulsions, and seaweed as a structural medium and their various potential applications.
Along the way, I’m enjoying broadening my knowledge of greener, more sustainable photography techniques; exploring the materiality of foraged plants and, where possible, using these in place of traditional darkroom chemicals, films or emulsions.
FLORIOGRAPHY: THE HIDDEN LANGUAGE OF PLANTS
I’m particularly drawn to using plants and natural, foraged materials as the conduit to telling the stories hidden within the landscape. Images can be left out to fade over time (and eventually disappear) or be fixed, though many stories from this early era of photography were by their very nature transitory and left little trace.
For years I’ve been researching the language and symbolism associated with plants to convey experiences and messages through metaphor. For centuries meanings and symbolism attributed to plants have been handed down through generations, to express messages of love and loss, without uttering a word. It’s a language that has been at risk of dying out these days as people lose their connection to the landscape.
I like to focus on ‘process’ when exploring these materials, especially when working with communities or on co-creative projects, as it encourages a flow mindset and has many positives in terms of wellbeing. This approach also help foster and nurture connections with the landscape and wellbeing in general.
I started by asking folk to share plants from their gardens, or forage with me along their well-trodden ‘lockdown’ routes to collect materials for Phase 2. This resulted in several impromptu enjoyable days spent with new friends, walking, foraging, talking and sharing, to create cordage from plants with specific symbolism or sentiment.
This process allows us to learn how to collect and prepare plant fibres and weave them into simple designs over cups of tea. Individually the fibres are fragile yet gain considerable strength when woven together. This simple ‘freeing’ process allows for the sharing of stories and reflection, which are in turn woven and held within the fibres.