environmental storytelling through art

About

Vivienne Schadinsky is an artist–researcher and arts educator whose work explores vulnerable natural ecosystems — seeds, plants, food crops, their pollinators and the elements — through the lens of air quality, water systems, and soil health.

Her practice begins with evidence from science, filtered through a framework of sustainability and philosophy and extends into art. She collaborates with her advisory board called The Current We Share made up of scientists, ethicists and philosophers, with their expertise from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst, the Natural History Museum, and universities worldwide — a network informing her long-term projects on climate change, food security, and ecological systems.

Hope is central to her work: a rigorous, creative tool shaped by her studies at the University of Oxford Lifelong Learning on hopeful responses to climate change, and on ethics in a shifting climate. These studies led to an ongoing collaboration with an environmental ethicist, including public talks on the subject.

Early in her career, she fell in love with Japanese ink. She sources ink, washi paper, and handmade brushes directly from shokunin — the craftspeople of Japan — and works also with soil pigments and minerals, letting the materials' natural origins shape her process.

She is also an educator and founder of the Sumie Project, developing a six-year, circular art curriculum for children and running workshops and talks for adults. As a publisher, she founded What the Silence Grew (Fleet and Rhine Publishing).

Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions in Basel, London, and Manningtree, and in group exhibitions in London, Tokyo, and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, with work held in private collections across the UK, Europe, and the US.

She is a member of the International Sumi-e Association, Tokyo.

Raised in Basel, Switzerland, she now lives and works in London.

Artist Statement

My work interprets vulnerable natural ecosystems — seeds, plants, food crops, their pollinators, and the elements: air, fire, space, water and soil.

Using sumi-e (Japanese ink) allows me to move between abstraction and representation. I love to play between monochrome delicacy and dense tonal depth, because I am interested in capturing on paper the evanescent quality of nature itself.

I also make small paper sculptures, integrating natural materials I find in my immediate landscape. I write and direct short films, self-publish zines, and am also working on future books — where I translate my work into environmental storytelling.

I source my ink, organic pigments and minerals, washi paper, and handmade brushes directly from shokunin, the craftspeople of Japan. Having met the people who make them, I feel a great sense of connection. The materials carry their natural origins, and their makers' spirit, into my work that is about nature itself.

In some pieces, I soak washi paper in ink or water, drying it in the sun, on trees, or on stones, so the process itself becomes part of the image.

My practice begins with observation in the field, and moves through research with botanists, ethicists, and food security experts, into material experimentation. I make this work because I believe the changes I observe affect how we experience life, deeply. My art can hold our attention on the plants, pollinators and the elements that are adapting to extreme climate. It cannot stop what is changing, but it can slow us down to remember what we might otherwise forget. I am particularly interested in the question of what conditions need to be right for something to thrive, and whether a seed is buried or planted.

Biography and CV available on request.

Further Education
2025 Vivienne has earned a certificate in How to teach sustainability, AMS Montessori Association. From this experience, she developed an art curriculum that connects artistic expression with environmental stewardship and introduces the students to the United Nation’ sustainable development goals (SDGs).

2025 Creative and Hopeful Responses to Climate Change, University of Oxford - Lifelong Learning

2024 Philosophy and Ethics in the Context of Climate Change, University of Oxford - Lifelong Learning

2023 AMI, Association Montessori Internationale, Orientation to Adolescent Studies, Montessori theory, child development, and adolescent education, ages 12–18.

Awards

2026 Asahi Shimbun Company Award International Sumi-e Association, Tokyo, and exhibited at the National Art Centre in Tokyo.

2025 Cultural Award for a Soya Bean Painting | Future Foods – International Sumi-e Association, Tokyo, and exhibited at the National Art Centre in Tokyo.

2024 Encouragement Award International Sumi-e Association, Tokyo, and exhibited at the National Art Centre in Tokyo.

’What speaks to the soul, escapes our measurements’ — Alexander von Humboldt