Fiona Goss (Scottish, Danish, Kenyan) graduated from the MA Fine Art course at Edinburgh College of Art in 2024. She was awarded the Clason-Harvie Bursary 2024, the Cousins Essay Prize 2023 and The Eduardo Paolozzi Travel Award 2022. Goss was selected to be the 2024 artist in residence at Loretto School, East Lothian. Since December 2024 Goss has been making and researching sustainable sculpture in Kenya.
Goss works collaboratively with ecology to tell stories. She does this by gathering organic material and data. These initial facts of a place divulge narratives of heritage, metaphor and feeling.
Embracing the Kenyan idea of Jua Kali, Swahili for ‘made under the hot sun with the materials available’, Goss presents new work created together with Kenyan Fundi’s (crafts people). She shares a moment that influences the exhibited works:
“We sit on the floor weaving palm fronds. Benti, a local coastal woman teaches me new skills, she is strict, reminding me to keep tension in the plait. A warm breeze flows through. She says the rains have gone; we are in the dry season. There is a continual conversation of rain here, its power to bring growth and with it hope.”
