Andipa Contemporary, in collaboration with the Royal British Society of Sculptors, is proud to present a performance by Lisa Selby, the winner of Spotlight 2014 Award for Video/Performance.

Lisa Selby: Some Prefer Nettles

7.20pm

at Andipa Gallry

1 hour performance, 6th November 2014

Performers:
Robert Harrop
Abigail Lingford
James Nixon
Rosie Sanders

Selby exposes a relationship between science and gender by approaching the subject of women and botany in England during the nineteenth century. Botanical illustration was thought to be a 'polite' and informal hobby for early Victorian women with time on their hands. Early Botany was gender coded and associated with such 'feminine' skills as flower arranging and flower painting. However, after Charles Darwin’s 'The Origin of Species' was published in 1859, the Victorian public became fascinated with natural history and botany and several women began emerging as prominent botanical illustrators. In reaction the male establishment reimagined and redefined botany as a 'serious' science rather than a female pastime and with this, female works were often published anonymously to avoid any link with a woman's name to their commercial ventures. Women became the botany communities ‘invisible technicians’, carrying out scientific work behind closed doors, receiving no credit for highly technical drawings.

Since graduating from the Goldsmiths MFA course in 2011, Selby has taught as an Associate Lecturer at Nottingham Trent University and Camberwell College of Arts, UK. Currently she works as a Fine Art Lecturer at Norwich University of the Arts. She has been awarded the Royal British Society of Sculptors 2013 Bursary Award and was selected for a solo show at the Surface Gallery in Nottingham. Selby has shown at the Attic, Nottingham, UK, ASC Studios, London, 14°N 61°W Gallery in Martinique and recently attended a ceramic- based residency at Künstlerhaus Stadttöpferei, Germany. She became an Honorary Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a visiting artist at SAIC School of the Art Institute of Chicago and MIAD Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, for her solo show ‘Must come down’ at Inova, Institute of Visual Arts in Milwaukee, US. Funding and support was provided by the Arts Council England, the British Council through the Artists’ International Development Fund and the Royal British Society of Sculptors.