Seed STUDIO emerged from a recent residency with artist Clodagh Emoe as part of IMMA’s A Radical Plot programming. During her residency Emoe proposed a mission to further embed the artist experience of biodiversification by piloting a dedicated studio space at the museum for this urgent knowledge and experience.

Seed STUDIO is an ecological space for IMMA’s Green Cube and addresses an overwhelming need to explore new ways of deepening and celebrating our connection with the natural world. Seed STUDIO utilises IMMA as a substantial urban green site to cultivate, nurture and sustain individual and collective research and artistic practice that foregrounds nature and biodiversity.

James Bridle is a writer, artist and technologist. Their artworks have been commissioned by galleries and institutions and exhibited worldwide and on the internet. Their writing on literature, culture and networks has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Wired, the Atlantic, the New Statesman, the Guardian, and the Financial Times. They are the author of ‘New Dark Age’ (2018) and ‘Ways of Being’ (2022), and they wrote and presented “New Ways of Seeing” for BBC Radio 4 in 2019. Further information on their work can be found here

Charlotte Salter-Townshend has worked at the National Botanic Gardens of Ireland since 2013, running themed tours, educational workshops, and social media. Her primary objective is to share her enthusiasm for the natural world and draw attention to overlooked corners of it. This summer Salter-Townshend is working as a naturalist on expedition cruises exploring islands and coastal areas of Britain. Her research interests include plant folklore, the history of botanical colonialism, and biophilia. She has a MPhil in Public History and Cultural Heritage from Trinity College Dublin and is currently a PhD candidate at TU Dublin where she is researching the Botanic Gardens as a visitor site.

Clodagh Emoe initiates collaborative projects and creates works that explore how meaning is formed through our connection with each other and the natural world. Her practice draws on ritual to create moments or spaces that invite thought and instill agency. Her exercises, a term she uses to describe her event-based participatory works foreground experience and perception creating instances where ideas might be played out and felt.

Clodagh has initiated numerous collaborative projects; Mystical Anarchism (2009-2013) with philosopher Simon Critchley (Prof. of philosophy, New School for Social Research), Creating the Common/The Unveiling (2010) a theatrical event parodying a failed unveiling of a monumental sculpture in sheltered housing for the elderly, The Plurality of Existence… (2015-2017) public audio works for Dublin, Cork, Carlow and Galway and Crocosmia (2018) exploring metaphor through horticulture to cultivate inclusion and belonging with individuals seeking asylum.

Clodagh’s work has been commissioned by Serpentine Gallery, London; Taipei Biennial, Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Nylo, Reykjavik; Documenta XIII, Kaisel; Visual, Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow; Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery; Project Arts Centre; IMMA, Dublin and Maynooth University. She has been recently nominated for the David and Yuko Juda Award UK.