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Free, Featured Exhibits

Meet the Artists: Helén Svensson and Lisa Jevbratt | SOLD OUT

Instructor
Helén Svensson and Lisa Jevbratt
Location
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden - Gallery
Date
December 10, 2022
Time
2:00PM - 4:00PM

Creators of new gallery exhibition, Interlopings: Colors in the Warp and Weft of Ecological Entanglements

Details:

Helén Svensson and Lisa Jevbratt use non-native plants that grow on Santa Cruz to dye yarn and wool from Santa Cruz Island Sheep (a breed endemic to, but now removed from the island).  The plants they use have a rich history of nutritional, magical, and medicinal uses in their countries of origin.  

Santa Cruz Island is undergoing an intensive ecological restoration process. The project explores perceptions of “invasive species” and aims to complicate questions regarding who and what belongs on that island and by extension on any island, real or imagined. The work seeks to participate in discussions about the migration of plants and microorganisms, immigrants, and colonizers across our globe.  

The exhibition consists of weavings and data visualizations showcasing and organizing the resulting colors in an attempt to create a deeper understanding of these plants and our relationship with them. It is showing in the Garden’s gallery from December 11, 2022 – March 12, 2023.

Interlopings: Invasive Species / Endemic Breeds (ucsb.edu)

This is a free opportunity to meet the artists and learn more about their work, but space is limited. Registration is required.
About the artists:

Helén Svensson is a Swedish artist who has been active since the late 1990s. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, Sweden. Svensson´s work is based on her own premises and rules. It is a methodical inquiring process consisting a slow movement in a given direction. With form and sign she visualizes our basic need to control, organize and manipulate our surroundings. The repetitive doing is the method, and the movement in the process is meant to be reflected in the form, ultimately an attempt to add traces in the work. She often starts from the visual, and the choice of material is determined by the expression of each work. They can be individual works as well as parts in a larger context.  www.helensvensson.se

Lisa Jevbratt is an interdisciplinary artist and professor of art at UCSB. Jevbratt’s work has been exhibited internationally in venues such as The New Museum (New York), The Swedish National Public Art Council (Stockholm, Sweden) and the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York). Concerned with systems – natural and man-made – Jevbratt’s work is making visible the forces, assumptions and contradictions acting within them. She works in a wide range of mediums, from computer programming and 3D printing to natural dyeing, spinning and weaving. The projects often juxtapose and amalgamate scientific epistemological approaches with alternative ways of knowing. With her software, apps, tools and participatory events she is inviting the audience to make discoveries together. jevbratt.com

Photo: A data visualization of the wide array of colors that the natural dyes made from invasive species produce. (Jevbratt) 
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