Cathy Dunbar Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom

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I am feminist, artist and activist. My work is multi media, using found materials and performance whatever speaks the loudest . I work in the community with groups helping them to realise an event or action. Also founder and member of several creative groups. core to my work is the belief that art and creativity are very human activities, essential to our wellbeing and that of the planet.

I worked as a dressmaker and clothes designer from when I left school 1970 till around 2000. I went to university in Cambridge (ARU)1993, to study art as I wanted to use my textile skills in another way. For 21 years I worked with young people in a supported housing setting, my initial job was arts coordinator a dedicated job running an art room and organising creative activities, for and with the young people. I am a founder member of the Cambridge women's performance group The Freudian Slips. The group was founded in 1994 we wrote and realised performances which explored women's issues often using archetypal fairy stories as a starting point lacing this with our own writing, experience, humour and making. I ran the arts area at Strawberry Fair for 10 years (a one day music and arts festival held in Cambridge UK, tripling the size of the area and bringing in more emerging artists. Our aim is to encourage and enable artists to bring their work and engage with the wider community, we brought, the Society of Xtras, Not a Cardi, The Interknit, Artist tend city, and Mrs Fubbs Parlour to the fair. In my work I am trying to understand how we engage with each other and the ecosystem we are part of. I am intrigued by how we arrived at this situation we now find ourselves in with the climate crisis, injustice and inequality, using my art to find a way out of the patriarchal colonial system we find ourselves embroiled in. My choice of medium is process led, I am interested in what we humans throw away , and will use scraps picked up and rubbish to create with.