At the heart of Olivia Priya Foster’s works is the co-dependency between people, places and animals, and the labour which binds them, generates the resources to pay for shelter, and creates a sense of belonging and fulfilment.
The experiences involved in growing up in Argyll, in a family with multicultural heritages and running a sheep farm, inspired Foster to make the series of artworks titled Black Sheep.
In our rural communities, the words sheep-farming and landscape are so ubiquitous that we take them for granted. By giving them centre-stage indoors, Foster’s works act as a wake-up call, drawing our attention to their changing role in our lives.
Like the communities of people driven from Scotland’s lands to make way for sheep-farms, today’s farming industry is experiencing profound change due to the ethics and costs of farming’s environmental footprint, and decreases in the market-demand for wool and meat.
Farming-folk have long enjoyed a sense of certainty, entitlement and belonging within their communities, however new insecurities join the instability of seasonal economies and housing stock challenges, further undermining the efforts of rural communities to achieve settlement.
Foster invites you to enter inside the installation Black Sheep and consider your own sense of connection with the materials, skills and places which make up the lives of the Argyll’s farming community, and the challenges involved with sustaining a sense of belonging.