Meet Homestead Park’s Artist in Residence: Nic Fife

Hello, I’m Nic! Since this summer I’ve been Artist in Residence in Homestead Park.

I’m an artist, printmaker and workshop facilitator. I work mainly in print between lino, woodblock and riso. My work is socially and politically engaged, focused on hopeful visions of the future, and inspired by folk, protest and ‘outsider’ art.

Nic Fife, Artist in Residence

My personal art practice is inseparable from my organising work, and workshops about play and creative empowerment I host around the city. If you’ve been to the park this summer, you may have noticed the print room I’ve been working on setting up with my co-conspirators from York Zine Fest - more on that in a separate blog! The first few months of my time as Resident Artist have been focused on setting up this infrastructure to bring people in to make and play, as well as having a functioning print room in the park!

The theme of the residency is the idea of ‘gifts as invitations for reciprocity’. The park was a gift from the Rowntree family over one hundred years ago. With this in mind, the ethos of the print space is focused on doing as much as we can for the people of York for free. I’m here to explore and communicate some of the broader ways that the land itself and everything it supports are a gift. There are parts of the park - trees, soil, mycelium - likely older than the boundaries that were drawn on the land to turn it into a park.

So, on the one hand, my residency here is going to involve displaying my work in the park, turning it into a free, open-air gallery. There will also be opportunities to come and help print some massive banners. But as well as big, flashy, eye-catching artwork, I’ll also be making smaller, more hidden interventions around the park with the park team - opportunities for you, the lovely visitors to Homestead Park, to forage for some artwork. We’ll call this foraging because, much like finding a good spot for edible forage, it’ll be free but you’ll have to go looking for it!

Keep an eye out for more updates about art in the park: here on the park website, as well as on social media. You can find me on Instagram @n.fife, and the print room @a.bundance.press.

Nic Fife, October 2025