Artist Talk: José García Oliva

Thursday 17 September 2026, 6-8pm

Join us for an evening talk by José García Oliva, who is our summer Ecologies of Migration artist-in-residence.

José will share the research and fieldwork from his months here, developed in conversation with the seasonal agricultural workers who pick the fruit grown locally in Fife and Angus.

Drawing on local field research, the talk examines the UK Seasonal Worker visa scheme alongside the wider global agricultural supply chain it operates within, and what gets left out of the images we usually see of food production.

We’ll close the event by introducing the sculpture now installed in the garden at Forgan Arts Centre, which is conceived as a gathering place for these conversations about food, land and migration in the future.

About the artist

José García Oliva is a Venezuelan artist living and working in London. His practice engages with outsourced labour systems, migrant economies, and the hierarchies that shape everyday urban life, interrogating how these structures are experienced, negotiated, and reproduced within shared social spaces.

José works through long-term collaborations that prioritise co-authorship and sustained relationships, influencing how the work is made, shown, and circulated. His projects often unfold through enacted social exchanges or site-responsive provocations, taking the form of performances, drawings, sculptures, and public interventions.