Ackroyd & Harvey

As part of Big Botany, the Spencer Museum’s major exhibition that explores humankind’s deep connections and fascinations with the plant kingdom, English artists Ackroyd & Harvey will visit the Museum to create site-specific artwork. Reflecting the themes of Big Botany, the artists will create 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 hope to collaborate with local activists. Another project may involve Dr. Ranil Senanayake’s “Satanic Formula,” which expresses the rise of greenhouse gasses at the expense of oxygen caused by human activity.

Together Ackroyd & Harvey have produced provocative works concerning the natural world for more 25 years. They focus specifically on the role of plants in sustaining life on Earth. Their art has been featured in group and solo exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the Europe and the United States. Some of their more recent solo exhibitions have been Conflicted Seeds + Spirit at The David Attenborough Building at Cambridge University; Radical Action Reaction: The Tree Ceremony at France’s main botanical garden Musee national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris; and 7,000 Oakes at La Maréchalerie – Centre d’art Contemporain in Versailles, France.