BIO
Jane Young is an artist based in Teesdale who is currently studying MA Fine Art at University of Sunderland.
Since 2012, she has worked as an Artist and Creative Encourager in and around the North East of England.
Jane’s work focusses on art for health and wellbeing within the community. Over the last year, and following the COVID-19 pandemic, she has developed ways to engage the community in addressing concerns around climate emergency and the threat to our environment, and has explored how this approach links to states of health and wellbeing.
Her installations have been created in the natural settings where she has taken her walks throughout the course of the pandemic and are recorded in a series of videos and photographs on Instagram.
Jane’s work is a collaboration with nature and her new work for SelfScapes will draw attention to the fragility and beauty of the environment.
ABOUT THE ART
Walking through the Dalby Forest becomes a conversation with nature.
In my work for SelfScapes I explore our relationship with the natural world – a voyage of discovery which in turn enables us to become more aware of ourselves. This creates a SelfScape – a keener sense of self and our part in the wider ecology of place which in turn can help with our own and the community’s sense of health and wellbeing.
One of the more surprising things to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a sharper awareness of, and respect for, the natural world. I hope that the work for Dalby Forest will help ensure that this appreciation doesn’t disappear as soon as the world gets back to normal – indeed to make certain that, into the future, we develop a more sustainable way of living, caring for and engaging with our environment and the communities within it.