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Ecologies of Diversity: Plants, Art, Film is a collaboration between Koel Gallery, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), and Edinburgh Napier University’s School of Arts and Creative Industries (ENU SACI). This hybrid residency is supported by British Council and curated by filmmaker Sana Bilgrami.

Working closely with Dr. Kerstin Stutterheim, visual artist, filmmaker and Head of Research at ENU SACI, an emerging Pakistani visual artist will be supported to develop their practice using poetic and experimental documentary film.

The residency will physically take place on Gumchi Farm in Tumair, Islamabad, and in Edinburgh. The project will map the indigenous and cultivated plant diversity in this farm environment, artistically and cinematically exploring the conservation of plants and their associated cultural heritage in the face of environmental and cultural change.

Using collections of South Asian plants and botanical illustrations at RBGE, and artistic-research film-practice expertise from ENU SACI, we offer a rich programme of mentoring, collaboration and outreach, embedding the resident artist’s practice in international and interdisciplinary knowledge exchange.

The residency will culminate in exhibitions, screenings and talks at Koel Gallery and RBGE. A catalogue of the work will also be published and printed.