Lorianna Paradise
is an artist, designer, environmental activist, and researcher that has lived between the wilds of Scotland, Germany, Latvia, Costa Rica, and the USA.
“The ever accumulating totality of everything all at once” is the way that Lorianna Paradise sums up what it means to be alive in the now, while reflecting on the events of the past as a guide for intentional designs for a better future. In a “Living as Form” context, the artist defines her life as her artwork, which includes at least two intertwined veins: the interactive action based, and the cathartic spiritual processing based. Whole systems thinking underpins the many threads in her work.
contact: loriannaparadise@gmail.com
Artists Statement:
part one (the theory):
Humans love to create borders, boundaries, and categories, but all of these are reductionist illusions. We understand (other’s and our own) actions within narrow windows. These false divisions tell stories that build worldviews. Such worldviews exist in constant resistance to the holistic reality that everything (though not always directly) is interconnected. This conundrum is not merely a philosophical problem, it brings about real world misconceptions.
In these false realities our bodies are divided in parts with separate minds, our outward human forms are categorised into races, we are assigned nationalities, nations are created with borders, and Nature is seen through disjointed parts.
The holistic Truth is waiting for humans to regenerate themselves into a higher dimension of harmonic cocreation. Not just a wishful, overly earnest idea, it is rather supported by the vast spectrum of human knowledge spanning from the sciences to more poetic endeavours.
part two ( the specifics):
I am an artist activist using regenerative permaculture (systems thinking) principles in social, organic gardening/ homesteading food production, art making (object and performative), and lifestyle applications. These pursuits sit under a defining umbrella context of "living as form", meaning the pursuits of my life (as a human being artist ) are in totality and in their parts, an art form. This includes long term land based (e.g. a permaculture farm in Costa Rica, the fledgling Dieva Daba project in Latvia), space based (e.g. a Berlin based living lab), pop up interactive performance installations, movement and dance based exercises, academic research with workshops (e.g. Masters of Research, regenerative skills in mainstream higher education and BEDABA (be nature) a holistic educational platform for regenerative life skills)… and mixed media painting, drawing, and sculpture that spiritually and physically derive materiality from the aforementioned practices, making them artefacts that are made from upcycled materials formally and conceptually.