SAFFY SETOHY & CLAIRE PENÇAK

Garden Series

An evolving choreographic investigation into plant life

A collaboration exploring our sensory engagement with plants — how they change us, and how we might become more attuned to what they offer.

GARTNAVEL ROYAL HOSPITAL GARDEN · IMAGE, KIRSTY SOMERVILLE

Contour lines curving illustration.

THE INVESTIGATION

Plants take us down with them into the earth.

Garden Series is an evolving collaborative choreographic investigation between Saffy Setohy and dance artist Claire Pençak, exploring our sensory engagement with plant life. They are interested in how plants change us, and in how we might orientate towards and become more attuned to what plants offer.

In touching plants, we are given access to their roots and to the soil. Plants take us down with them into the earth, opening up ways for us to become more earthly and more grounded in our bodies, lives and communities.

Multiple hands from a group hold and examine a sprig of lemon balm together outdoors during a Garden Series session.
Two participants examine plant roots together beside a wooden raised bed in an autumn community garden during the Garden Series.

In touching plants, we are given access to their roots and to the soil — ways to become more earthly, more grounded.

THE RESIDENCY

A year at Gartnavel, across four seasons.

The artists are currently culminating a year-long residency at Gartnavel Royal Hospital and Garden and Centre for Integrative Care, working across all four seasons of the year.

Working with staff, patients and garden volunteers, they have been exploring ways to bridge the wards and garden ‘bringing the outside in’ for those who can't access the garden, as well as finding ways to reconnect people with this verdant place. They work with themes inspired by the season and the plants growing prolifically at that time. Staff wellbeing sessions have also been part of the offer.

MOVEMENT AMONG THE AUTUMN PLANTING · IMAGE, KIRSTY SOMERVILLE

THE PRACTICES

Ways of attending.

Movement improvisation scores

i

Somatic practices forefronting different senses

ii

Drawing, writing and conversation

iii

Working with the season's prolific plants as themes

iv

Performer in black makes a deep sweeping movement in an autumn garden beside a wattle fence, with a timber gazebo visible behind in the Garden Series.
Dancer balances on one leg while holding a tall stick upright in a walled garden during a Garden Series session.
Fallen and decaying apples and pears scattered on garden cobbles with autumn plants behind, found during a Garden Series session.

HOW IT GREW

The roots of the work.

OCTOBER 2022

Spending Time with Rosemary

The project was seeded through a Dance Base residency at the Cyrenians Community Garden, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. A description of this residency in scores, images and words can be found in the PDF, Spending Time with Rosemary.

2023

Between garden and hospital

The project was seeded through a Dance Base residency at the Cyrenians Community Garden, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. A description of this residency in scores, images and words can be found in the PDF, Spending Time with Rosemary.

NOW

A year-long residency, four seasons

Culminating across all four seasons at Gartnavel Royal Hospital and Garden and Centre for Integrative Care.

Dried allium seed head skeleton and honesty stems with papery pods arranged on a white board with dramatic shadows in the Garden Series.

WITH THANKS

Funded by Creative Scotland Open Fund. Supported by Art in the Gart and The Work Room.

IMAGE CREDITS — SAFFY SETOHY, CLAIRE PENÇAK, LYNSEY GRAHAM, AND KIRSTY SOMERVILLE.