Flora Gregory

I am a socially engaged  artist, looking at the human-nature relationship, at our increasing dislocation as we become urbanised, and the role of the imagination and story telling in transformation.

Recent work includes 'Health and Well Being Dispensary' , 'Join Us In Mesopotamia', 'Come and Lie In The Hay !', 'Do You Have A Special Relationship With An Other Than Human ?', 'Nature Rights', 'Come Into The Woods' and 'The Map Room'.

‘Come and Lie in the Hay’ (2017) is an invitation to do just that.  While lying in the hay, there is time to reflect on the loss of our relationship with the land over the last 100 years, and the loss of 97% of our wild flower meadows since WWII. Intensification of farming methods – ploughing, drainage, reseeding, and fertiliser and herbicide, has resulted in an important loss of habitat for a huge diversity of wildlife.

‘Do You Have a Special Relationship With An Other Than Human ?’ (2018) invites a sharing of other people’s experiences, and through discussion explores our own individual Special Relationship to Nature, to An Other Than Human.

‘Nature Rights’ (2018-ongoing)  is a collaboration with Natalie Koffman (Gregory and Koffman). It is an invitation to explore the human relationship with nature through time, discuss  whether nature should have rights and how this would affect us in our daily lives, and what the world would be like if we recognised the rights of nature.

'Come Into The Woods', a socially engaged project, developed by Katie Hellon, Nimmi Naidoo and myself (The Mappists), offers a sensory experience of the Wychwood Forest, as a part of our investigation into people's connection with the countryside and how this connection can improve wellbeing. It was held at Wilcote Art Studios and the Priory Garden in Charlbury during 2019, and again at Wilcote Art Studios in 2021. Come Into the Woods: Singe Wood was held also in August 2021. 

'The Map Room: Living and Working' (2018), a collaboration with Nimmi Naidoo and Katie Hellon, was a participatory event at The Wychwood Fair, inviting people to mark on an OS map of the Wychwood Forest, where they lived and where they worked.  150 people took part. We found that few people have working connection to the land. 

This was followed by 'The Map Room: Public Rights of Way' (2019) which invited the local community to mark on a map of the Wychwood Forest where they walk. The map was at Wilcote Art during Oxford Artweeks at at the Wychwood Forest Fair. 

'The Map Room: What's Your Favourite Place in the Wychwood Forest ?' was held at the Wychwood Forest Fair in August 2021, people put their answers on a board to share with others.

'The Map Room: What Do You Wish for the Wychwood Forest ?' was held at the Wychwood Forest Fair in July 2023, people shared their answers on a board for others to see. 

As an artist-maker I am attracted by organic materials such as sheep wool, Jurassic limestone, bones, feathers, egg shells, hay and straw, dry leaves, dry stone walls, worms, and the changing seasons, the fabric of the Cotswolds. I like sometimes to work with found and everyday objects, sometimes things which are organic or disgarded or taken for granted. 

Inspirations: Thomas Berry, Hildegarde of Bingen, Rachel Carson, Cormack Cullinan, Suzi Gablik, James Lovelock, Robert McFarlane, Maya Lin, Chief Seattle, Shelley Sacks.