Those Arriving in the Present- PATSY CRAIG

Art + Activism No.18
Those Arriving in the Present
PATSY CRAIG
Sunday June 30, 2024
2:30-4:00 pm PST
Patsy Craig has a background in fine arts and cultural studies. She received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design (USA) and an MRES in Cultural Studies at Birkbeck College, University London (UK). She is a curator and producer of cultural events, artist/designer, author/translator, and Indigenous rights advocate. For over 20 years she has been cultivating cross-cultural collaborations throughout Europe, India, USA, and Peru in the fields of art, music, architecture, urbanism, and environmentalism. This output has included publications, exhibitions, concerts, lectures, workshops, and designed installations. Patsy has received grant awards for her work from Arts Council England (UK), Cultures France/ Institut Francais (Fr), Goethe Institut (De), Graham Foundation & Wake forest University (USA), US Embassy & Ministry of Culture (Peru), and others. Notably she edited Making Art Work (Trolley, UK), a book that explores the relationship between ideas and making which subsequently became an exhibition at the Architectural Association (AA) in London, UK; and with support from the Graham Foundation (USA) produced a book based on her research in Chandigarh, India about the impact of European modernist design on traditional Indian culture. In 2022 Patsy received a grant from the Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability (CEES) @ Wake Forest University (USA) to translate into English the extraordinary book Soy Sontone, an account by an Indigenous Amazonian elder, Antonio Sueyo Irangua of his memories pre-contact. Recently Patsy was awarded a grant from the Ministerio de Cultura (PE) to design an installation titled Viaje Astral, for a park celebrating Andean Ancestral Culture in a remote village in the Cusco region of Peru.
Seven years ago Patsy turned her focus to environmental issues and Indigeneity. Her experience with the Indigenous-led environmental movement at Standing Rock (North Dakota, USA) inspired her to learn more about Native American culture made possible with support from the Goethe Institut in 2017. In 2018 she collaborated with University College London (UK) to develop a project that provides platforms from which to amplify Indigenous world-views called Flourishing Diversity (FD). With support from the MRE (Ministry of Foreign Relations -Peru), FD was launched in June 2019 at Gallery 46 in London with The Invisible Forest, an exhibition she curated featuring renown Indigenous Peruvian Amazonian artist’s works, and an adjunct artist residency programme. The Invisible Forest was subsequently presented at the Bioneers Conference and other contexts in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2019. In January 2020, Patsy founded AWA, a cultural project in Cusco, Peru, highlighting art focusing on environment, Indigeneity, and decolonisation providing unique access to cultural traditions that recognize and perpetuate sustainability and biodiversity as the means to ensure mutual flourishing. AWA was launched with The Sacred Forest which was also presented in various contexts in the San Francisco Bay Area In June-July 2022 she curated and presented an exhibition in San Francisco of art works by the Etochime Harakbut Artist Collective from the Madre de Dios Region of the Southern Peruvian Amazon alongside works by San Francisco Art Institute alumni called MINE: What is Ours in the Wake of Extraction, highlighting issues surrounding the social and environmental impact of extraction. Adaptations of this exhibition are currently touring various University campus’s throughout the United States. In 2023 Patsy received a grant from the Ministry of Culture in Peru to design a space in a remote Andean village for the local community to revitalize and celebrate ancestral traditions. She is currently working to complete this project and continues to research various aspects of Indigenous culture to raise awareness of issues surrounding environmental justice.