The Squirrel’s Heartbeat

Fiona Banner AKA The Vanity Press•www.fionabanner.com

Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press is a visual artist whose work centres on the problems and possibilities of language, both written and metaphorical. For much of 2020 she has been artist in residence at Phytology, a cultural institute based at Bethnal Green Nature Reserve in East London. During her time there she has been making work with the non-human residents, and also talking to some pretty fab humans, in an open sided potting shed, ruminating on the environment, art and activism. Supported using public funding by Arts Council England

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Episodes

The Tai Treeist

Fiona Banner speaks to Johanna Gibbons landscape architect at J&L Gibbons and author of Conversations on Urban Forestry about her love of trees, soil and the world wide wood. Recorded at the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve (Phytology) Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press is a visual artist whose work centres on the problems and possibilities of language, both written and metaphorical. For much of 2020 she has been artist in residence at Phytology, a cultural institute based at Bethnal Green Nature...

Mar 17, 2021•18 min•Ep. 4

Complexity is important for our health!

"Michael, I am going to introduce you. And that's not easy, because you are many things and you work in many different fields. But your project is very consistent and focused. So Michael Smythe, artist, activist, producer, horticulturalist... Yeah… When you started to become involved with this space, the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, did you approach it as an artwork in the first place? Or did that grow as the work grew? Because I know that this beautiful Phytology Medical garden that we're sitt...

Feb 11, 2021•21 min•Ep. 3

The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog

Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press discusses good hair days, bad hair days, foxes, nature, language, the internet, lockdown, anxiety, isolation, and the environment with Dr Omar Kholeif ; author, curator and cultural historian, whose recent book Art in the Age of Anxiety is now available and is brilliant. Recorded recently, outside at the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve Trust, overlooking the Phytology Medicine Garden.. Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press is a visual artist whose work centres on the p...

Jan 19, 2021•35 min•Ep. 2

A tree is never going to be a curator, or is it?

Welcome to The Squirrel's Heartbeat, with Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press and Lucia Pietroiusti, Curator of General Ecology at Serpentine Galleries. Fiona and Lucia met recently at Bethnal Green Nature Reserve and talked about stuff. The title of this series comes from a George Eliot quote which Lucia referred to during this conversation, “If we had a keen vision and a feeling of all ordinary human life it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat and we should die of ...

Dec 14, 2020•32 min•Ep. 1

Trailer

Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press is a visual artist whose work centres on the problems and possibilities of language, both written and metaphorical. For much of 2020 she has been artist in residence at Phytology , a cultural institute based at Bethnal Green Nature Reserve in East London. During her time there she has been making work with the non-human residents, and also talking to some pretty fab humans, in an open sided potting shed, ruminating on the environment, art and activism....

Dec 10, 2020•1 min

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