The Proseed Collective was formed in 2020 by Carlisle artist Daniel Ibbotson. It was initially created in response to the COVID pandemic as a vehicle for local artists and has continued to grow in the years since. This year, Proseed will be taking part in the world-renowned Venice Biennale, with an exhibtion at the Palazzo Bembo. We are thrilled that three of our artists, Martin Evans, Jan Huntley Peace and Eddie Potts, have had work accepted as part of the exhibition.

The theme of this year’s Biennale is Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, from a series of works started in 2004 by the Paris-born and Palermo-based Claire Fontaine collective. These were neon sculptures that rendered in a growing number of languages the words “Foreigners Everywhere”. The phrase comes, in turn, from the name of a Turin collective who fought racism and xenophobia in Italy in the early 2000s. Each of the Proseed artists will be displaying a piece of work in response to this theme.

The exhibition runs from 20 April to 24 November and is well worth a visit if you’re lucky enough to find yourself in Venice this Summer!

Jan’s chosen piece is entitled ‘Windows on Another Life’. It uses her distinctive technique of creating porcelain ceramics that have been built up from individual elements, often molded from found and vintage objects.

Jan’s work is intended as a mythical map and references the discomfort of migration and displacement; otherness, detachment and entrapment. It is also intended to show the possibility for change and the power maps have in helping us find our way to something new.

Martin’s work is a landscape painting entitled ‘Painted Ladies’. His first response to the exhibition theme was to look for local landscapes with a foreign influence. He settled on the Italian garden in the heart of the Lake District at Rydal Hall. His research also led on to migration in the natural world.

The Painted Lady Butterfly has one of the longest migrations in the World, they travel every spring from North Africa on a 9000 mile round trip (over several generations). There are two ‘Painted Ladies’ in the painting and classically butterflies have been used in art to represent transformation & hope.