Contemporary visual artist, film-maker, Cathy Fitzgerald (MA Fine Art – New Media), works with local human and non-humancommunities, foresters and scientists to engage with ecological concerns.
She is interested in how we relate to the natural world on FILM – is it possible to create films that convey a more ecocentric, empathic earth-view.
Her films often reference scientific facts and ideas about global biosphere degradation and change (she has worked both in biological science and green politics) yet rather than present overtly political or scientific documentary she is interested opportunities provided by some experimental artists cinema that may give audiences space to look at the earth and its communities afresh in its complexity, interconnectedness and dynamism. How such works may operate in new SOCIAL MEDIA FILMIC spaces is also of interest.
She has centred her work on a SLOW ART FOREST project taking place in her small two acre woodland detailing how one may help transform a monoculture conifer plantation into an ecologically & economically sustainable permanent FOREST (forests are key to future climate stability and local economies). For many years she have worked alongside professional sustainable foresters (prosilvaireland.org) here in Ireland and Europe and knowledge she has gained informs the work. She has also worked to introduce radically new, non clear-fell sustainable national forestry policy in Ireland, having presented policy that has recently been accepted by the Irish Green Party (2012).
Cathy is currently an NCAD Ireland Visual Culture PhD scholar in practice and theory looking at experimental artists film and ecology.
Thesis working title: the ecocidal eye: beyond the anthropocentric gaze to a relational gaze in cinema
Member of culturefutures.org, Associate Member of Land2 practice based art group UWE (Bristol)
For more information about Cathy’s work visit www.cathyfitzgerald.ie
