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Talks & Tours

Fieldworks:
Artist talk and in conversation with Flora Parrott & Sara Trillo

Fieldworks: Artist talk and in conversation with Flora Parrott & Sara Trillo

Entry

Free

Dates

Wed 30 Apr 2025

Hours

5.45–7.45pm

Location

Foyle Rooms
Turner Contemporary

Join Open School East and artists Flora Parrott and Sara Trillo, as they talk about recent projects and ongoing research.

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Sara Trillo presents a series of recent works inspired by dene holes (ancient chalk mines found throughout south east England), and the themes of positive extraction, sympathetic making, and regenerative planting that are contained within her sculptural, textile and artefact-based works. 

Fellow artist Flora Parrott will be sharing recent projects exploring ideas of porosity, edges and perimeters, and the imaginative possibilities of the close-by, of worlds found in the cracks between the pavement or in the inside of your pocket. 

Following the talks, Flora and Sara will hold a conversation about their individual approaches to ‘fieldwork’, an active process of artistic research that places the artist in and amongst a shifting and interrelated landscape, whilst drawing out threads shared between each of their work. The artist’s discussion will also examine the sensorial cross-over within their work, and the specific framework for materials which they set within their respective practices.

Flora Parrott

Flora Parrott is an artist based in Kent working in sculpture, print and textiles. Flora trained in Printmaking at both The Glasgow School of Art and The Royal College of Art. Her work explores interior landscapes of the body, thinking through unseen workings and sensations that occur under the skin. The work, often taking the form of tableau or 3-dimensional collage, uses natural forms and everyday objects and experiences to reimagine the mysteries of blurry ultrasound images, the insides of deep, dark pockets and the points at which inside meets outside. 

Flora is an Associate Lecturer in Print at the Royal College of Art and a post-doctoral researcher on the ERC funded project Think Deep based in the Geography Department at Royal Holloway University London. Recent exhibitions include ‘Hollow Earth’ with Hayward Touring and ‘Darkness Retreat’ commissioned by Legion Projects.

Sara Trillo

Sara Trillo is a visual artist based in East Kent, with a studio in Margate. She was born in Ramsgate and has spent much of her life in Kent, developing a large archive of research about the history and mythologies of her native county. Sara explores landscapes through research, walking, and making, seeking to uncover hidden histories of the human presence within our shared ecological environment. Much of her recent work has been focussed on the Kent Downs landscape, with a particular interest in dene holes, deep shafts dug into chalk, of uncertain age and purpose. 

Sara studied Fine Art at Norwich University of the Arts and in 2017 became an Associate of Open School East in Margate. She has exhibited widely in the UK and northern Europe, as well as undertaking funded residencies in diverse locations including France, Germany, Cyprus and Turkey.

OSE Public Programme 2025

Open School East is excited to announce a new series of public events as part of its ongoing programming cycle, Home Is Where The Garden Is. Through participatory workshops, artist talks, and listening sessions, the programme will explore the networks, systems and communities that form civic space; an entwined mesh of shared social and political space shaped by material and social interventions and interrelations. The programme draws from local and national histories, speculative experimentation, and the social-ecological systems that shape our lived environments.

You can find more Public Programme events at: openschooleast.org

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