About Jordanna Greaves

Artist and Curator

I was born in 1979 and now live and work in both Plymouth and London.  As an artist and curator, I explore the oscillation between the discombobulation and pain of living in a neoliberal spectacle; the sickening attraction towards it and the craving for other possible futures. Through my multidisciplinary practice, I test out strategies we can use to resist its seductive charms and sickly attraction by creating and reimagining conditions to explore on how we can reinvest into selves and our communities via our day to day living. A significant output of this inquiry is as co-founder and director of community art/music spaces in Hackney, London and Plymouth, called GROW.

Email: greavesjordanna@gmail.com

CV

Lives and works in London and Plymouth, UK

EDUCATION

2019

  • Re-tuning to Nature: Exploring Ecopsychology, a training course, Centre for Ecotherapy

2015-2017

  • MA Fine Art (Distinction) The Cass, London Metropolitan University

1999-2002

  • BSc Social Science – Psychology (2:1). Leeds Beckett University

EXHIBITIONS

2023

  • Promise Me Utopia : Yesterday’s Idea of Today’s Tomorrow. Group show with Curtis Benjamin, Pete Bennett and Plyconic, Lea Bridge Library, London

2022

  • Studio Projections. Part of #DIYEXPERIMENTS series, fringe activity for British Art Show 9 which included a series of images, film projected onto the Grow Plymouth building

2021

  • ‘Open Fragments’ Online show. Pragmata Collective

2019

  • Let Battle Commence with Peter Bennett, The Lift Gallery, Hackney Wick

  • Four legs good, two legs bad: Chinese Year Of The Pig, Elements Gallery London at Q-Park, Leicester Sq

2018

  • Nothing to Hear Here. An interactive and immersive installation in collaboration with UCL

  • Collusion. Innovative and experimental spoken word and performance festival, Grow, Hackney Wick

  • DollyOlli Open Studios, Hackney Wick

2017

  • DISCO TERMINI. Part of Other Worlds. The Cass MA Show, London

  • <INSIDE OUT> Curated by Gavin Turk, part of Hackney WickED Open Studios. Here East, London

  • The Image Obsession Question with The Essential School of Painting. Bob and Roberta Smith’s Studio, Ramsgate

  • 51%RememberHer, part of International Women's Day 2017. Tower Gallery, London

  • Passing Through, with Ali Bahreini. The Cass, London

2016

  • Is it about you? Is it about me? Is it about us? w/ Moé Sekiya. Part of Photomonth 2016. Darnley Gallery, London (3-28 October)

  • Hackney WickED Open Studios, Stour Space, London

ESSAYS/PROJECTS/RESIDENCIES

ONGOING

  • Grow, Hackney. Co-founder and curator of creative space. Hackney Wick, London

  • Grow Plymouth, Co-founder and curator of studios and creative space, Plymouth

2023

  • Residency. A guest day visit to the Fine Art department at the University of Plymouth to discuss/crit students’ work

  • Project. Climate (Re)Considered. A project in collaboration with University of Plymouth, Sustainable Earth Institute and Low Carbon Devon

2021

  • Project. Grow Change: Series of events and workshops on ethical economics; community resilience and gentrification; education out of the institution; self-care and climate action (including digital series ‘Grow at Home’). Also, in 2018, 2018, 2019.

  • Project. Curation of community workshops with focus on sustainability, including installation of canalside floating planter, herb planting and furniture-making using old tyres

2019

  • Essay. Neoliberalism is the root of our personal and environmental illness - a journey into a better understanding and resilience. Unpublished Essay, The Centre for Ecotherapy

  • Project. Curation of V&A Lates at Grow, Hackney showcasing artists pushing boundaries and reclaiming space amidst a constantly changing cityscape

2018

  • Project.‘ Island of Ground + Water’. Mentoring students on building sustainable installations from Bartlett UCL Architecture School / UCL Faculty of the Built Environment 

2017

  • Essay. Abolish Alienation. Can art abolish the alienation caused by Western capitalism?  Starting with the work of William Morris at the time of Marx and the industrial revolution, taking a pit stop in the 60's to review Asper Jorn as a member of the Situationists and then concluding in the elusive world of Banksy.

  • Residency. Artist in Residence. Sydenham Gardens. August 2017 (since 2015)

  • Project. 'IS IT ABOUT YOU? IS IT ABOUT ME? IS IT ABOUT US?' a collaboration with Japanese artist and photorgapher Moé Sekiya, raising questions about authorship, creative impulse and cultural backgrounds

2016

  • Project. Your Work Here. Peabody Trust, Hackney Wick, London

2014

  • Project. Open House. Balfron Tower, London

  • Residency. Artist Connects Collective Occupation. Islington Arts Factory, London