Annie Lord is a Scottish writer and artist with a strong emphasis on environmental participatory art. Training in sculpture at The Slade School of Fine Art, Annie developed her work to encompass storytelling, writing and community-based practice. In 2023 she graduated with Distinction from the MA in Creative Non-Fiction Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her practice explores how we interact with the physical world – transforming plants, animals and minerals into objects of artistic, scientific and domestic value. In 2023, she was shortlisted for the Nan Shepherd Prize for her nonfiction book in development, Morphoses: On Nature’s Processes and Processed Nature. She is represented by Caro Clarke at Portobello Literary.
Her work is embedded in the natural landscape and she is passionate about finding creative ways to encourage people to spend more time in their local environment. In 2019 she was commissioned by the Forth Rivers Trust, alongside fellow artist Morvern Odling, to create a permanent piece of public artwork which encouraged residents of Livingston to engage with their local river Almond. The artwork was to be co-created with the community and would be installed at the sites of three new fish passes installed by the Trust.
Her ongoing public artwork, ‘The Neighbouring Orchard’ seeks to link together individuals and communities through the act of growing apple trees. This commission from Art Walk Projects has resulted in a network of over 100 trees planted in tenement greens, shared gardens and community spaces in Portobello, Craigmillar and Musselburgh. The project encourages growing in small, domestic spaces and is inspired by the long history of market gardening in coastal Edinburgh.
Each grower received everything they needed to establish their apple tree and have also received training in pruning and caring for their tree. They planted the trees not only as a marker of a particular time but also as an act of hope – looking forward to the time in which they could gather to share their harvests. As part of the project she has run drawing classes, both online and as outdoor events, hosted charcoal making sessions using apple prunings and produced further artwork including drawings, texts and an audio piece.
Annie Lord was appointed as artist in residence in March 2022 for a project run by Fife Contemporary and The Ecology Centre, Kinghorn.
