About
Ackroyd & Harvey
Heather Ackroyd & Dan Harvey
Artist
Artist Bio
Ackroyd & Harvey (b.1959, and b.1959, Yorkshire and Surrey, UK) have been investigating Nature-based processes of growth and decay for over three decades, addressing forces of anthropogenic climate change and bio-diversity loss that are rapidly reshaping and rewriting Earth’s systems. Their time-based artworks intersect art, activism, architecture, biology, ecology and history, evolving through extended research in response to people and place, interfacing their profound interest in local ecologies and global planetary concerns.
In 2019, they co-founded Culture Declares Emergency, a collective of international and UK-based Hubs, sharing practical support to seek socio-ecological justice, and working towards regenerative change through culture, heritage and the arts.
They have received international awards and prizes for their pioneering bio-chemical photography, including the Royal Academy Rose Award and have been widely commissioned for monumental interventions in the public realm, including London Olympics 2012; The David Attenborough Building, Cambridge; Aarhus Triennial; Derry-Londonderry UK City of Culture. Recent exhibitions include, Orleans House Gallery, London; La Galeria, UC Merced, California; Science Gallery, London; European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024; RA Summer Exhibition; Hayward Gallery, London; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, USA; 23RD Biennale of Sydney, Australia; Somerset House, London; Lewisham Borough of Culture, London 2022; Tate Modern, London; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Artwork Description
In Ackroyd & Harvey’s photography, Nature is the material and chlorophyll the medium. Grass grown from seed has an extraordinary ability to make complex bio-chemical images through photosynthesis. The term literally means building up or assembling by light, and it could be regarded as the basic alchemy of all life – the gold of the sun transmuting into the green of life. The photosynthesis portraits are part of the duo’s Protector series and features portraits of musician Marcus Decker, Indigenous activist Josimara Baré and poet performer Zena Edwards. Marcus is threatened with deportation following a prison sentence for scaling the QE2 Dartford Crossing; Josimara advocates for the autonomy and institutional strength of the Indigenous communities of Roraima, Brazil; Zena embraces the poetic word to express feelings she has for the awesomeness and drama the world has to offer.
