13 Jul 09

View of Magdalen Tower from the Oxford Botanic Garden

The University of Oxford Botanic Garden has been awarded a generous grant of £50,000 by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to fund a new artist-in-residence project. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is based in Portugal, and has supported a variety of research projects across the University since 1995.

The new cross-cultural, inter-disciplinary project has been inspired by the International Year of Biodiversity 2010. In Britain, the Oxford Botanic Garden will host Portuguese artist Gabriela Albergaria, who will undertake a residency and produce new work in association with the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. In Portugal, the British artist Rob Kesseler, who has formerly undertaken a residency at the Garden, will be based at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência in Lisbon.

Louise Allen, Curator of the Botanic Garden said: "This Anglo-Portuguese alliance builds on our previous collaboration with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and we are delighted to have the opportunity to bring together science and art. Our previous experience of working on these kinds of partnerships has demonstrated the enormous benefits to be gained from bringing artists into contact with plants, gardens and gardeners, and we have every confidence that the results of this collaboration will be equally exciting."

Note: The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation no longer supports joint science and arts projects.