St Andrews Botanic Garden: Emma Varley
Emma Varley
St Andrews Botanic Garden Residency
Following a nationwide open call for artists living in Scotland, Dumfries-based visual artist Emma Varley was selected for an Artist Residency at St Andrews Botanic Garden. The residency supported a period of research and development in Varley’s practice, exploring AI image-making in relation to plant life and the shifting boundary between the natural and the synthetic.
Varley was selected for her innovative explorations of AI technologies to generate plant imagery, and for the way her work prompts questions about authorship, evolution and how we understand ‘natural’ and ‘synthetic’ forms. She describes generating AI illustrations as being comparable to processes of cultivation and selective variation—ideas that connected strongly with the Botanic Garden as a site shaped by care, research and long-term engagement with plant life.
The residency was delivered as a partnership between Fife Contemporary and St Andrews Botanic Garden. As part of this collaboration, the Botanic Garden developed Bioscope, a pavilion designed by Marcos Cruz and Brenda Parker (Bartlett School of Architecture) and constructed using Engineered Living Materials. Bioscope was created as a space for projection, gathering and exchange, and provided the setting for a public screening at the conclusion of the residency.
During the residency, Varley developed new moving-image works through ongoing experimentation with AI tools, alongside time spent at the Botanic Garden and dialogue with staff and researchers. The residency supported focused development within her practice, allowing ideas to be tested, refined and extended over the residency period.
Public audiences were able to engage with the residency through a series of events at St Andrews Botanic Garden. Varley took part in the Botanic Garden’s Big Spring Bash, sharing insight into her working methods and AI programmes such as Midjourney and DALL·E. A subsequent screening in the Bioscope pavilion provided an opportunity to experience work developed during the residency and to hear from the artist and the Director of St Andrews Botanic Garden about the residency and the development of Bioscope.
Residency Details
Artist: Emma Varley
Partner: St Andrews Botanic Garden
Location: St Andrews
Dates: January–March 2023
Focus: Research-led residency (AI image-making and plant imagery)
This project sits within Fife Contemporary’s wider programme of research-led residencies and partnerships, supporting artists to develop their practice over time and creating points of connection between artists, organisations and communities.
