Georgina Barney

Dye Garden & Polytunnel

Georgina Barney’s current practice revolves around the dye and pigment garden on site in the old playground at Primary which she developed and maintains with Primary and Audrey Leach (Primary Gardens). She experiments with plant-dyeing and other processes such as extracting pigment and making paint.

Georgina’s background is that of a contemporary artist. Prior to a shift into the territory of craft, she spent over ten years exploring ideas of ‘Art and Farming’, participating in national discourses about art and the rural. Outcomes of this work were often participatory: in particular, working with the farming community and making connections between metropolitan art institutions and rural sites.

Georgina’s ongoing interests in place, the natural world, and drawing link this previous, more conceptually-driven chapter of work with her current one as a ‘maker’.

Georgina is also an experienced teacher with a commitment to sharing knowledge with diverse audiences. She delivers workshops with arts organisations including Primary, and privately.

Georgina has contributed to key UK survey shows and programmes about art and the rural including: The Rural, Whitechapel Gallery (2019); Creating the Countryside, Compton Verney Museum and Art Gallery (2018); Green and PLeasant Land? The Harris Museum, Preston (2015).

Other projects include: Museum of Contemporary Farming with Kate Genever, commissioned by the Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading (2018-2019); GB Farming: An Island Journey (2018); and Georgina led Science Museum Lates event Towards a Museum of Contemporary Farming with Kathrin Bohm’s rural arts network Haystacks (2017).

Georgina curated Sheep Sketchbook at the Attenborough Arts Centre, University of Leicester (2014). Georgina received an AHRC Scholarship for her MPhil Curating the Farm, Robert Gordon University (2009-2011) and two Arts Council awards: Research into Arts and Agriculture (2008); GB Farming, a journey around 14 UK farms (2007).