Stone at theundergroundstream

 

Lark stone | 2016 | Still from digital documentation of live action | 2m 8s of video with sound

 

I'm delighted to be joining Susie David in a show she's curated called Stone.

“Seven artists consider stone in its simplest, rawest form – a rawness that provides oblique allegories: for deep time, for resistance, for nurturing, and for healing.”

Gretchen Faust
Jem Southam
Megan Calver & Gabrielle Hoad
Maxine Foster
Steve Thorpe
Susie David

Megan and I are showing Lark stone that we made with Susie back in 2016 during a collaboration at Dawlish Warren.

The simple gesture of turning a piece of chert in the hand conjures the song of a skylark: the weight and inertness of the stone contrasting with the bird’s energetic movements and song. The stone sings along, squeaking gently as it is handled.

Stone
theundergroundstream
Home Farm, Churchstow TQ7 2QR
By appointment, weekdays 2-5pm until 30 August 2025

The walls tremble...

 

I'm embarking on a new solo moving image project, provisionally titled The walls tremble, the furniture stamps its feet.*

It's about female spirit mediums of the late 19th and early 20th century. During séances, mediums would demonstrate the presence of other-worldly forces by the tilting of tables and the animation of other domestic objects. Some of this activity was taken to be genuine; on other occasions it proved to be cleverly engineered conjuring tricks. I like this blurring of boundaries; this rubbing up of belief against scepticism, nature against artifice, art against science.

While my end-goal is the making of a short film, which has its own language of trickery and haunting, I find myself heading down quite a sculptural path. I've been looking at ways to make domestic objects tremble, wobble and vibrate. By initiating the visible movement of things we think of as inert or static, I'm acknowledging their agency but also hoping to set in motion - or at least suggest - something more unexpected and strange.

I'm hopeful these misbehaving objects will act as a symbol of the way Victorian certainties were being disrupted by rapid developments in science and technology as well as by massive social change.

*I've drawn my title from an account of a séance by a French journalist in 1857, sourced via an article 'The medium on the stage' by Simone Natale (2011) in Early Popular Visual Culture 9:3 239-255

Stop and look around

Hiding places (home from home) | 2025 | Digital print 

 

 

 

With new collaborative work coming to a standstill, Megan Calver and I have been turning over our archive to keep some kind of joint practice alive. What at first seemed like a stop-gap has turned into an interesting and productive experience.

The film The Signal and the Noise that I completed early this year was our first step in this direction. Megan was able to join me in generating some new footage, but the film's overall motivation was to summarise our making from the past 2-3 years in filmic form.

Now we're looking back over the past five years of work (and occasionally further) to resurrect ideas that were set aside – not because they were bad but because they didn't quite fit the moment. It's interesting what you understand with hindsight: how something you saw as preparatory or experimental adds up to something more substantial in the light of future developments.

For example, we had a series of mobile phone pics of us standing in a field with our coats on our heads. The action was serious but the documentation was casual. When Laura Porter approached us about contributing to a group show called Our Place at Studio KIND. earlier this year, we decided to do a little more production work on the images and stitch two of them together to put our effaced bodies in dialogue. The new print is titled Hiding places (home from home).

Now we've been selected for a show called Where are we now? at Thelma Hulbert Gallery in the autumn. We're drawing on some almost accidental shots we took of trees by flash-light at Durlston Country Park while in residence there back in 2022. The shots sat in a Google Photos album waiting for their moment and I'm about to get three of them printed up to gallery scale with a new accompanying text to make Night Piece (Swimming with Trees).

Although I work within certain repeating themes, I'm often focused on keeping forward momentum – and with some reason. I've found that galleries and commissioners usually seek out work that's no more than two years old. But that's resolved work. Few artists are short of ideas; it's having the time and resources to realise them that's challenging.

It's good sometimes to stop and properly explore what you've done, not just what you're going to do next. This moment of pause and reflection is turning out to be quite rewarding.

Our Place at Studio KIND

I'm thrilled to be part of a new exhibition, Our Place, curated by Lauren McNicoll for Studio Kind. It brings together a number of female artists living and working in London and the South West, with a focus on the female experience, body and domesticity. Megan Calver and I are contributing some photographic documentation of a live action we made while in Purbeck, Dorset: Hiding places (home from home).

Bunmi M Moses | Carole Evans | Delpha Hudson | Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver | Jess Scott | Lauren McNicoll | Laura Porter | Leily Mojdehi | Leonie Cameron | Millie Laing-Tate | Mina Fouladi | Monika Rycerz | Poojan Gupta | Sally Taylor | Sarah Chapman | Susana Higuera

Our Place
Studio KIND. at The Corn Store, Barnstaple Pannier Market EX31 1SY
31 May – 28 June 2025
Wednesdays - Saturdays 12.00-17.00

Taking a breath

Breath Drawing | 2025

 

 

 
A new leaf, a blank(ish) page. Some sadness and also some possibilities.

Having got my DYCP-funded film done and dusted (and entered into a handful film festivals) I had started working on contributions to a couple of art exhibitions this summer with my regular collaborator Megan Calver. However, some very difficult circumstances mean it's not to be. 

Over the past few years our shared practice has survived a few wobbles as each of our families hit rough patches, but this time we've had to admit defeat. This is not a situation we can solve by trying harder, thinking afresh or finding workarounds. We have decided, with heavy hearts, that we have to pull out of both events.

I'm sure we'll resume our collaboration later but these cancellations mean I'm left with the strange luxury of free studio time.

I'm not going to rush into things. It's a long time since I had space to reflect and indulge in aimless studio play. I have a new solo film project I'm trying to fund and develop, which can now take precedence. I can also dig back into a long list of half-completed personal projects.

So while my thoughts are with Megan and her family, I am also relishing the unexpected opportunity to breathe.

Trailer for The Signal and the Noise

 

The Signal and the Noise | 2025 |  Warning: flashing images

 

We had a test screening yesterday of The Signal and the Noise. For Megan Calver and me, it was our first time of seeing (and hearing) the film at cinema scale. Our 15-minute short explores the legacy of the World War II engineer and paranormal researcher Alec Harley Reeves, and his collaboration with the spirit of a dead physicist: Michael Faraday.

Most of the small, invited audience of about 20 people had some connection with the film. Many had supported us as we developed the work and ideas that became part of this film. Others provided a voice or made an appearance, offered technical expertise, had input to funding applications, shared material, helped to clear permissions or simply provided support at home to enable us to work. It was all incredibly important to us.

There’s lots to take away from seeing the film in this new setting as well as from the feedback we received. It’s been quite a journey – learning how to make a film by hands-on involvement in many different aspects of film-making. But we have done what we set out to do - make a stand-alone work suitable for submitting to film festivals and screenings.

Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England

From dark to light

Here I am back in 2022, stumbling around in the dark in front of a night-vision camera, hoping to receive a signal. It was part of a field trip to Durlston Country Park in Dorset with Megan Calver - and it's found its way into our new moving image work The Signal and the Noise.

Recent years have been quite a struggle for me (and I know I'm not the only one) - earning a living while sustaining an art practice, collaborating with others while holding on to some space for myself, and making endless applications for funding, commissions and shows...quite apart from the difficult life (and world) stuff that's been going on.

When I became seriously ill last year and was forced to take time out, I thought twice before re-entering the fray. But I'm glad I did because 2024 has been such a creatively enriching year. I was lucky enough to be awarded ACE DYCP funding to explore moving image practice. Over 8 months, it feels as if I've been topped up with the energy I need to create and develop new work, when previously it felt like every new project was a further drain on an almost-empty tank.

I've had amazing contributions from my long-term collaborator Megan Calver, who did a lot of the groundwork for this film with me during our previous projects Clouded Border and Delicate Instruments, as well as joining me to generate new footage and giving valuable feedback during the editing process - all this, while coping with her own challenging circumstances. Thank you, Megan.

The film has also benefited enormously from the generous mentoring and support of Luke Hagan, Liberty Smith and Kate Paxman, as well as the many discussions I had with the DOCLAB group at Exeter Phoenix and my peers at CAMP. And a special mention for Jez Riley French, who really opened my ears on a field recording course last October.

It's not all been plain sailing - from time to time, I've been very stressed, tired and lost. I also know that when the DYCP ends (soon), there are considerable hurdles ahead.

But I'm looking forward to 2025 with some personal optimism - and hoping the wider world turns out to be a brighter, kinder place too.