Laura Donkers PhD, graduated from the University of the Highlands and Islands in 2011, and although her permanent home is in the Isla of North Uist, she is currently living and working in Auckland NZ. She is an ecological arts professional specialising in strategic community engagement and behaviour change projects, with a process-led praxis that connects the environment and human via the social context.She is an independent researcher and writer promoting ecological systems regeneration and this work formed the basis of her Practice-led PhD submission in Contemporary Art Practice at Univeristy of Dundee in 2019. Despite currently being a long way from her permanent home in North Uist, Laura identifies that the formative arts training she received at Taigh Chearsabhagh UHI, Isle of North Uist, has underpinned her approach to making and understanding art and community.

'As a practice led research artist with an expanded drawing practice, I explore environments and communities using field research methods such as drawing, field-walking, and digital recording. I gather primary data to convey 'moments of connection' that presents experiences of living “first hand”, in touch with the environment, community, and self.  From this situated position, a durational method of observing and listening to people, place, and environment intersects with activism and policy to develop poietic insights (embodied learning) on nature and culture.

I am concerned about the current ecological crisis and draw on knowledges accumulated through lived experience to help regenerate ecological responsibility. I develop outdoor community arts projects collaborating with the embodied, practical knowledges of situated communities. I also develop Eco-mindfulness with stakeholders to co-create cultural programmes that promote interconnectedness across human and nonhuman realms and towards more sustainable, meaningful futures.'    -    Laura Donkers

‘The various environmental challenges that we face have increasingly become the main motivation behind whatever I produce. Finding ways through art to help people to think about what is happening without terrifying them into inaction is just the first hurdle. I feel so strongly that unless we all start to feel genuinely passionate about biodiversity and other environmental issues, improvement will not happen.

I’m convinced that artists have a key role to play in engaging us all in this mammoth collective struggle – through using narrative and multisensory work away from screens and galleries. I am particularly interested in using my work to raise the awareness of the issue of plant blindness and to help move people from looking at nature, to actively helping it.

Having lived a very rural life I’ve recently moved in to the city and realized how distanced most city folk are from the reality of nature and how little they know and understand about the natural world around them.

Making work with minimal environmental impact and that reaches as many as possible are constant issues to struggle with. My work involves making small pieces of biodegradable work and leaving them where people might notice them and be prompted to think and perhaps act.  I have become impatient with subtlety and nuance so nudging, hopefully humorous wording is usually incorporated.’ - Fi Smart