NEW YEAR 2020

10 January 2020

a quick resume of last term, which can only be described as a slamming into something! the travel, newness and intensity was frankly overwhelming but I managed to survive, attending as many inductions, lectures, seminars and crits as was humanly possible. to précise all this activity, I have isolated certain processes that I feel will continue to be relevant in my practice, namely alt photography, b and w analogue photography, drawing, writing and artist book making, new areas are lithograph in all its guises as well as scanning and increased use of digital recording. I may even venture into animation, sound recording, digital 3 d printing and polish the creative writing. 

finding the time to analyse and reflect on practice has been limited. but over Christmas with the prospect of the WIP show and of course dissertation, I've been forced to focus on concept, my voice and position. Needing a site to respond to, (having made the decision that this is where I want to continue to base my work), meant I nominated the foreshore on the thames for both practical and research purposes.

the current slow coming into focus seems to be running along these lines.

time, duration and temporal aspects will be implicit in the work, as opposed to overt, through the use of materials, and processes. having spent many hours processing both film and paper negatives in the dark room, I have adopted a way of working with the images using the scanners and software available at college. the images produced alongside the reading of texts, in particular Hito Steyrl have altered my persective on how to render ideas in my work. of particular note was the piece about turner's painting of the slave ship from a multi perspectival view. so thinking about this I've been at the thames foreshore placing cameras, both homemade, bought and manufactured. the images of these liminal areas have been interesting although still very preliminary.  

other things of influence have been the negligent eye catalogue, the work by chrysal chia especially the use of drone technology to capture slow sweeps of empty flats in her neighbourhood of Shanghai? the quiet works of Olafur Elliason in his recent show at the Tate 'in real life' especially 'Beauty'1993, an ephemeral piece using only water and light. Uriel Orlow's artist talk at RCA was also really relevant in terms of how to site your work, the abele stagers quote:

connection is created and is a matter of concern.....

the notion of responsibility and concern ,  of caring about your work but also why it might matter and what can you do with it, how can it change things? 

of interest is the archive  and what a civilisation says 

the last project at Mottisfont was concerned with narratives of a place, time, transience and spiritual past, tidal flows relating to geology and geography. now I am focusing on liminal and edge lands, in particular, the histories of absences and disappearances...  the flaneuress, the murder of women for their body parts in the 18th c, Prices candle factory, the constant construction on the banks of the Thames, and the ebbs and flows of the tides which attract the mudlarkers collecting relics. my processes include creative writing, walks and experience. my background of textiles using photography is a consistent vocabulary in the work.