When the lighthouse is dark between flashes

 

Crush | Oil and acrylic on board | 2008

Back in the day, one of my art school lecturers used to say that the first thing students made on the fine art course was a good predictor of the last thing they'd make. At the time, I found this a bit pat. Surely we were there to grow and develop in wild and unexpected ways? But, in my case, he turned out to be right. One of the first things I did at art college was to make a series of drawings in which I used a twig to coax some old and sticky gloss paint to drippily define the contours of crushed plastic cups and tin cans, almost like diagrams of eye movements scanning an image.

Having spent three years trying all sorts of different things, and being blown off course for months at a time, I got a bit cross one day, went to my studio window and started to track the flight paths of birds across it with a skittering oil bar. That work evolved into What the world becomes, a large-scale drawing installation for my degree show.

It's not that I didn’t change and develop, I did. But I also held true to something that continues to obsess me: how to transcribe fleeting phenomena into stable, tangible objects...revealing the gap between the world and our representations of it. As well as being expressed through drawing, it's led me into photography (especially long exposures), film-making (of course), and using data points to make digital drawings and 3-D prints. Étienne-Jules Marey the French scientist, physiologist, and chronophotographer was a major influence, as were the scientific documentations of photographer Berenice Abbott. I also loved this quote from George Kubler in The Shape of Time (1962): “Actuality is when the lighthouse is dark between flashes […] It is the void between events.”

Maybe it's a stretch, but I think my recent work about the uneasy relationship between psychics and physics, which addresses the fairly rigid (if useful) ways we construct scientific knowledge, might also relate. There's a lot here to reconsider.

An offshoot of my practice?

 

The Future Present | Work in progress | 2025

There's a branch of my work that doesn't quite fit with all the rest: my interest in growing food and nurturing the surrounding ecosystem. I think of it as my leisure interest rather than my professional practice but, because art always comes out of life, it finds its way in.

Most recently, it appeared when Nick Davies of Loophole Projects asked me to contribute a message to the future for his book The Future Present. I saw the dark side and worried there might not be humans around in the future with the means to interpret printed words or images, so asked if I could include actual seeds.

I selected seeds for their interesting shapes and ability to lie flat between pages: dark little grains of basil, beige flecks of tomato, ornate arcs of hollyhock, cornflowers with their bristles, and the elaborate black and white quills of French marigolds. Using tweezers I placed around 30 assorted seeds in each of 200 glassine packets. Urged by Nick to also make an internationally postable version (without seeds), I added the grid reference of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault as a marker for where to fix the packets on the page.

Nick summarises the work beautifully in his conclusion to the book: “Hoad's painstakingly packed envelopes not only hold biological messages to the future through the DNA held in the seeds, they also touch on metaphorical subjects such as the flow of life around us (whether ideas or literal seeds) and the meaning of a message to the future (is not every piece of writing but a seed?)”

It builds on a similar work I made called Mutter Erde for The Library of Lost Books back in 2012. Other plant-influenced projects include Interloper in 2014 about the grafting of fruit trees, Foreign Soil in 2015 about the challenges of being a locavore (amongst other things) and most recently RANGE (work in progress 2025- ) focusing on my small allotment, which is perched on the edge of a golf driving range that occupies a former council landfill site. Through my allotment I am also growing for the Exeter Broad Bean Flock, an attempt to create a locally adapted food crop through free pollination, and taking part in Dig for Dirt a citizen science project looking at how soil bacteria interact with toxic waste.

I began to feel like a medium hearing, rather imperfectly, the voices of the dead

From Noise | Digital video | Work in progress | 2026

Life is a bit complicated at the moment for sustained studio practice, but I'm intermittently working on an experimental re-edit of material gathered with Megan Calver during the making of The Signal and the Noise (2025). I'm focusing on extracts from a recording kindly released to us by Chrissie De Rivaz that was made by her late husband John in 1971. He was one of a group from STL Harlow who met with their colleague, the eminent scientist Alec Reeves, to discuss his psychic research - probably just weeks before he died.

Given the circumstances of its making (Reeves' illness and possibly medicated state, a busy hospital ward and a small crowd of close colleagues speaking in their own 'shorthand'), the recording is difficult to understand. It was most likely made with a low-quality portable cassette recorder and basic microphone, then recopied, and includes intrusive ambient sound, tape hiss, distortion and possibly some print-through from degrading tape. 

The fact Reeves' hospital-bed seminar arrives in the 21st century as a glitchy analogue recording is resonant. I am fascinated by Reeves' use of generated noise (eg using radium particles) for paranormal study as it was the very thing his ground-breaking scientific invention of pulse code modulation – or digital signalling – sought to eliminate.

As I set about the difficult process of transcribing the recording back in 2023, I began to feel like a medium hearing, rather imperfectly, the voices of the dead and trying to guess what they wanted to communicate. Indeed, there is a long-standing belief (from the days of Edison and Marconi onwards) that the communications media, through which we experience disembodied voices, might be 'haunted media'1, a place where the human and more-than-human can communicate. 

1Jeffrey Sconce 2020

30 years of art

Many thanks to Chris Millward for making such a beautiful catalogue for AA2A's 30th Anniversary Exhibition, featuring the work of 60 artists and students from participating colleges across the organisation’s history.

AA2A (Artists’ Access to Art Colleges) is an Arts Council England Investment Principle Support Organisation (IPSO) that has been facilitating artists' residencies since an initial pilot in 1996. The programme fosters collaboration between further and higher education institutions and artists while supporting students as they transition from study to employment in the arts. 

The AA2A 30th Anniversary Exhibition runs from 16th July to 13th August, and is open Monday to Saturday 10:00–16:00 at CASC Gallery, University of Chester, Creative Campus Kingsway, Kingsway, Chester, CH2 2LB 

I'm proud to be part of this project: a rare free-to-enter, professionally curated exhibition with a comprehensive catalogue documenting the selected artists. Definitely something to celebrate!

You can view the whole catalogue here. 

Songdelay

Joan Jonas | Songdelay |1973 |  Still from 19 minute video work

How wonderful to be reminded of this work by Joan Jonas, which first resonated with me as I thought about signalling (and performance) in relation to film-making - around 2021-2022 ( I think I saw it at Tate Modern.) 

At the time of writing you can view it here in full. 

I continue to find this film inspiring for its sound (often out of synch or in opposition to normal 'rules' of sound use), its amazing locations (complete with massive passing cargo ships), its playfulness and its down to earth approach to some quite wild ideas. I'll let Princeton University Art Museum explain it further:  

"Songdelay records an improvisational performance Jonas staged with young artists in downtown New York at the Hudson piers, then a derelict area slated for redevelopment. The film is divided into two parts. The first shows a series of vignettes of the artists improvising with props—sticks, a hoop, a metal rod—interspersed with shots of participants clapping their hands above their heads, moving their bodies in angles and arcs along the piers. In the second part, performers tilt mirrors to send flashes of sunlight toward the camera, at times completely saturating the celluloid and overexposing the film. The performers playfully exploit an idiosyncrasy of perception—the delay between the processing of visual and auditory stimuli. Breaks between scenes or vantage points and overexposed celluloid were maintained after the editing process, foregrounding the film’s status not as documentation of the performance but rather as a distinctive work of art that embodies Jonas’s process-based experimental practice."

 

Another archive bites the dust

I heard yesterday, via an Instagram post, that a-n The Artist Information Company has rebranded as Artists Now. In many ways this was great news. A rethink was overdue - the old site had become a bit of a mess and no one seemed to know what a-n stood for any more. Even I, a loyal subscriber since last century (!), had considered resigning my membership.

But I don’t like the way it was done. None of the members were told in advance of the change (apart from a cryptic email about a changeover in payment systems) and many were confused as to whether the new site was genuine. Personally, I was slightly shocked to find that eight years-worth of reviews I had written (some commissioned, others volunteered) had disappeared overnight, leaving me with 21 dead links on my website. I also know that other artists and galleries used those links as evidence of work made and evaluated - much of it in Devon, a region often overlooked by mainstream art publications. It's true, I hadn't written for a-n since 2013, but the reviews were an important archive - of various artists', curators' and programmers' work, and my responses. 

When I queried what had happened to the archive, I was breezily informed that there will be a "live, curated digital archive to tell the story" (whose story?) and that I can request downloaded copies of my reviews. I will reinstate them on my website for my and others' use. But that's not really the point is it?  In a world of made-up CVs, it's the external validation that matters and, honestly, what’s so hard about just dumping the old website on a server so we can still link to it?

I have written before about the casual way digital archives are taken offline and the effect this has on artists' credibility. I really don't think erasing artists from your history is great way to start a new chapter of advocating for them.

AA2A 30th Anniversary Exhibition

 

Lost - two pigeons/153 seconds | 2014 | Laser-sintered nylon

I'm happy to be part of an exhibition in Chester, celebrating 30 years of Artists Access to Art Colleges (AA2A). In 2013-14 I had a really productive year at the University of Plymouth, developing a project to model avian flight paths using state-of-the-art bird-borne data loggers.

While at Plymouth I was able to access some of the college's own 3D printing technology including a MakerBot in engineering that extruded and melted plastic filament, and a rather eccentric machine in the ceramics that extruded liquefied porcelain clay driven by compressed air - all ahead of making my own models from laser-sintered nylon, two of which are featured in the show.

While at Plymouth, I also spent productive hours in the life room thinking about serial and parallel processes in image making. ( See also drawing and flying.) I benefited from access to the library, from meeting other fantastic artists (Tabatha Andrews, Sally Hall, Kayleigh Hill, Lee McDonald and Jamie Barber) and students such as Rachael Allain on the scheme, and sharing my work through both on-site exhibitions and talks. Sadly Plymouth University no longer hosts AA2A (or even an art department!) but I would heartily recommend AA2A to anyone who does live near a participating college.

Image: 'Lost - two pigeons/153 seconds' | 2014 | Laser-sintered nylon. Made with support from Arts Council England and the Royal Veterinary College's' Structure & Motion Lab.

The AA2A 30th Anniversary Exhibition runs from 16th July to 13th August, and is open Monday to Saturday 10:00–16:00 at CASC Gallery, University of Chester, Creative Campus Kingsway, Kingsway, Chester, CH2 2LB

The Future Present

  

I am thrilled to be one of 52 contributors to The Future Present, an edition of 200 hardback pocket books compiled, curated and published by Nick Davies of Loophole Projects. We were all asked to share a message to the future and/or offer some kind of gift to posterity.

It's now available from Nick via his website. Each contributor receives a copy, a further 100 will be gifted by Nick over the next year. The remainder are available for purchase at a cost of £20.00 plus £5.00 postage (UK only) from www.nickdaviesworks.co.uk

The Future Present features contributions from: Lou Adams, Dominic Allan, Arcade/Campfa, Parimah Avani , Jacq Bebb , Charlotte van Berckel, Sovay Berriman, Jack Brown, Philippa Brown, Tom Cardew, Paul Carter, Stuart Crewes , Angela Davies, Jeremy Deller, Dharma Hounds, Amy Douglas, Mark Eaglen, Emma Edmondson, Steven Emmanuel, George Storm Fletcher, Tim Foxon, Ryan Gander, Georgia Gendall, Thomas Goddard, Rebecca Gould, Harry Grundy, S Mark Gubb, Lauren Heckler, Gabrielle Hoad, Ellie Hoskins, William Lang, Iwan Lewis, Micah Lexier, Rudy Loewe, James Lomax, LOW PROFILE, Catrin Menai, Paula Morison, Rebecca Moss, Radha Pate, Eddie Peake, Scott Robertson, Ryan Saunders, Aled Simons, Rhys Thomas, Mark Titchner, Charlie Tweed, Miranda Whall, Alan Whitfield, Sue Williams,Tomos Williams and Lucy Wright.

Green screen and travelling roses

 Under the Rose | Work in progress | 2026

While I've been putting the art world to rights, I've also been making and remaking films. I'm still very much a learner when it comes to moving image - trying to working out what kind of films I want to make and how much of the making I want to do myself. My latest adventure is in stop motion and green screen - two technologies I never imagined I'd be using. However, they have turned out to be the best way to manipulate an image of a rose for my latest film about Victorian mediumship.

I have in my mind the idea of 'apports': objects such as fruit, flowers, jewels and even live birds that materialised in the seance room from other locations. (Film itself is, of course, a tricksy, haunted medium, very well suited to exploring the contested powers of mediums.) 

I'm thinking about a rose that travels across time and space as we hear the words of Emma Hardinge Britten (1823 –1899), a writer, orator, trance clairvoyant, and spirit medium who advocated for scientific acceptance of mediumship and spiritualist phenomena. She was a sincere believer in the powers of mediums and I'm focusing on an article she wrote for The Spiritual Magazine in 1871 where she directed attention to the 'movement of a single rose leaf' as reason to believe in 'the opening of the gates of a new science'. 

At the same time I'm working on a new edit of The Signal and the Noise, not to replace but to reinterpret some of the material and give greater emphasis to Reeves' words. It's been quite a job as the original film, which ties together much of my and Megan Calver's thinking from 2021 to 2024, is tightly constructed. However, as a stand-alone cinema film, it now feels too busy and oblique. It might work better as a gallery film, where it could contextualise the different sculptural works we made during that period as we drew inspiration from the landscape and wartime history of the Isle of Purbeck. Although finding a suitable space to make such a show is a challenge in itself...

The raw and the cooked

A short film about Gabriel Orozco*

 Apologies in advance to current practising artists - myself included - but I feel I need to set this down.

I am alarmed to find myself bored with contemporary art and I want to understand why. The prospect of traipsing around yet another gallery has started to weigh heavy, when once it was an adventure, pursued with passion. I have started to opt out of openings, to not bother to make trips to shows I once would have considered unmissable. It's true, I am older and a little jaded but I think there's another problem. The art is getting worse.

To borrow a term from Claude Lévi-Strauss, I see a lot of raw rather than cooked art these days. By which I mean art for which the raw ingredients have been gathered but which has sidestepped the more challenging process of cooking (thinking and making) that resolves those ingredients into something new.

Perhaps you'll find pure research (photos, objects, drawings, papers) arranged in vitrines or on the gallery walls, which the viewer is invited to study as if marking the artist's homework.

Or, mundane photos / barely edited smartphone footage of little significance, were it not for some accompanying text that explains an idea or reference that occurred to the artist but remains unexpressed in the visuals.

Or illustrative paintings / drawings of people or landscapes that in themselves may connote important themes or narratives, but the painter is content to sit back and let the referents and not their own painterly labour do the work.  

Or imitative abstracts (painted or sculpted) that continue to riff on a revolution in art more than 50 years after the fact. 

Or art made to illustrate a doctoral thesis or tick a scientist's funding criteria or meet a museum's engagement agenda or fulfil a property developer's Section 106 requirement. 

Or art made to look like all the other art - clumsy painting; re-assembled painted pallets; fat bundles of stuff on on spindly legs; recycled kitsch; large draped pieces of fabric; random objects culled from the street around an urban studio. 

Or clunky artisanal ceramics, and other badly executed crafts presented with (if we're lucky) a splash of irony.  

Sometimes I see these things, recognise them for what they are and part with hard cash to hang them on my wall or put them on my shelves. Because I like them and think I could live with them. But that's interior design, not art.

Sometimes things can look like any of the above and still be full of important ideas. There are no rules.

But. 

Good art, cooked art, brings together unsuspected content to create new flavours. "What if?" "Why not?" "Fuck that!" It surprises, provokes, confuses, disrupts, asks questions, opens doors, creates awkwardness, angers, unsettles. It might give pleasure, but in a thoroughly overwhelming and disorienting way - like a relentless tickle or a dose of psilocybin, not a stroke of the head. 

It resolves into something that the artist needs to tell the world, consciously or unconsciously. It alters people's minds, their ways of being. In some small way, every piece of real art changes the world; it doesn't just add to the pile of meaningless stuff already in it. 

I understand many artists are battling almost impossible odds to have the time, physical space, head space and cash to make their work. These circumstances do not help artists to generate quality work, and sometimes I feel it's a miracle any art gets made at all. 

Very few of us can make significant, fascinating, provocative art all the time. But some of us, sadly, aren't even trying. 

 *Gabriel Orozco is one of many artists whose work and process I feel hits this high bar. See also https://gabriellehoad.blogspot.com/2011/04/love-and-hate-and-gabriel-orozco.html

Making space

Life drawing - 30-second pose | 1990s

Over the past few months, I've been sifting the contents of my house, regularly traipsing to the recycling centre with bin bags full of old artworks, advertising work and shredded papers. I am hoping to make some space for a small home studio by the end of the year. 

Looking back at old art is one of the hardest, saddest things. I've drawn and painted and made stuff since I was a child, believing that being good at something was all that mattered. When I realised people like me did not get to have careers in the arts, I found a 'proper' job in advertising instead. But I kept on with the sketchbooks and evening classes and summer schools.  

I promised myself I would return to art but, in the meantime I tried to build my skills. I learnt the basics of painting, printing, photography, casting, sculpting, design. Amidst all the sketchbooks and photos and experiments, I have unearthed stacks of old life drawings. I attended classes regularly, often after long days in the office, believing it to be an essential part of the artist's routine. But I also loved the intensity of the life room: the drawings you could only make in that moment with that person in front of you.

So what a shock when I finally made it to art school as a mature student to find the life room dismissed as a 'comfort zone' and the workshops and studio spaces being actively run down. Instead I was taught ideas and theories. After a bit, I adapted happily enough to a more conceptually oriented way of working, with much of the making outsourced. It's what I still, broadly speaking, do today. It suits my studio-less state. 

It's sad to think of all the long hours and labour I devoted to a dream that never quite materialised, but I don't see the time as wasted. In the moment it had meaning and I still use much of the knowledge I acquired - from plasterwork to print pre-production, sewing to screenprinting - even if it's only to commission makers who are more practised in their craft than me.

I do make, of course: I perform live actions, I arrange things in spaces, I bring people together for events, I create photos and moving image footage, I design publications and edit films. And, when I have bigger ideas I want to execute, I work things out through models and prototypes. But I do miss the process of thinking through making with my hands. It's a long time since I made physical marks and formed physical shapes simply to see what they show me. Or indeed since I went to life class. Just thinking about splooshing paint or ink or plaster around again makes me homesick with longing.  It's time to make some space for making.

On not being an artist

Image public domain from OpenClipart

A few days ago, I heard that a modestly funded residency I applied for had received over 250 applications. I'm grateful to the organisers for their transparency - and have adjusted my expectations of the outcome accordingly! They've clearly put a lot of thought into the application process: asking for the bare minimum they need to shortlist, while making it as accessible and easy as possible, so I have no grumbles with them. But it does indicate how few good-quality opportunties are available and how many artists are now competing for them.

No wonder so many artists are abandoning the profession (or even this entire Brexit-hobbled country) - often entering trades such as plumbing, carpentry, building, clothes-making, community organising, food and catering, horticulture, marketing, and painting and decorating ... Where they usually find their intelligence, creativity, energy and problem-solving skills are highly valued. Out in the real world, people expect to pay you for your time, materials and overheads, and respect you for being the expert you are. It's not all rosy, of course, but it is possible to earn a living and feel good about what you do.

Meanwhile I watch the demoralising privatisation of the art space and a corresponding drop in the quality of work that gains any traction. My Instagram feed is full of ads for self-funded 'residencies' in private venues; 'open' exhibitions charging extortionate entry fees; fee-based professional development opportunities promising to equip desperate artists with the skills to compete; and privately run galleries and venues pushing an agenda of exclusivity and privilege. And don't get me started on the way art has been colonised by bloated university departments pyramid-selling pointless qualifications. Any one would think artists are awash with money when, in fact, most are simply out of options.

It's not going to get better any time soon, so new strategies are needed. Even though I'd love to continue to share physical work in physical spaces, the opportunities to do so with proper support are becoming vanishingly rare - and eyewateringly competitive. My move towards film has been partly motivated by a desire to stop wrangling with gate-keepers and have more control over the means of production and distribution. Self-organised events will be key but, to reach larger, more international audiences, there are also thousands of film festivals and screenings.  

I've been pleasantly surprised by Film Freeway, a central hub for entering film festivals around the world. Yes, you still 'pay to play' as you would for an open exhibition but, if you're canny and hit earlybird entry fees, the costs stay low. Best of all, there's a very light admin burden: you upload your film and publicity materials just once, for free, and then pay fees as and when you choose to enter different festivals. No tailored proposals required, no images and statements in umpteen different formats, no delivery and collection days where you must turn up in person to hand in or collect your work. 

It's this kind of respect for the busy and precarious lives of people who make stuff that I'm looking for, whether it's the paid residency with a simple application process and transparent communication, or the application platform that alleviates my admin burden. I also really appreciate a thoughtful rejection message (because, let's face it, we see far more of those than acceptances!)

Curators and commissioners probably do need to think harder about what they are asking of artists when they advertise opportunities ... before we all become so exhausted we stop bothering to apply (no joke). Andrew Simonet is very good on the extractive nature of artist call-outs and what organisations might do to improve things.  

The Film Festival Experience

I feel privileged to have had my film The Porous Body shown as part of the Official Selection at Two Short Nights 2026. It's really thrilling (as well as totally overwhelming) to see your film on the big screen and to hear it relayed through a cinema sound system. It was also very instructive.  I've spent the weekend doing a few tweaks: correcting tiny mistakes that were suddenly evident in this new setting.

As an artist more used revealing my new work in gallery spaces, it felt incredible to have a room full of strangers sit quietly in the dark and give my film their full attention. By contrast, a gallery private view is mostly full of people standing around drinking wine and gossiping.

But here's the thing I have to accept about film festivals. My films may or may not find complementary company. The Porous Body was shown as part of a programme called 'Something Feels Off', which focused on horror, suspense and the uncanny. As soon as I saw the programme I knew that my low-budget, low-key, research-driven film was going to be swamped. The other films (all of them well-resourced dramas) were great but they were of a very different genre. I was proud of the integrity and simplicity of my work, but it simply didn't fit.

(By contrast, the film I made with Frankie Williams and Tim King as part of the Two Short Nights 48-Hour Film Challenge benefited enormously from being screened alongside similarly make-shift, chaotic works in an atmosphere of generosity and hilarity.)

This isn't a criticism of the programming as I understand how hard it is to fit everything together for a festival. There's no perfect way in such a crammed schedule to give each film the space it deserves. But it is something I need to consider as I continue to make submissions to different film festivals.  

Never Touch the Ground

 Frank Mary Films | Still from Never Touch the Ground | 2026 

Two women, one cake and an epic cross-country challenge. 

I spent this weekend working with Frankie Williams and Tim King as part of Exeter Phoenix's 48-Hour Film Challenge. The aim is to make a three-minute film from script to final edit in just 48 hours.  You can recruit cast and crew, recce locations and gather kit in advance ... but the actual brief arrives at 6pm on Friday and the completed film must be uploaded at 6pm on Sunday.

We were assigned Documentary/Mockumentary as a genre, along with the same compulsory prop and line of text that all 2026 competitors have to include in their films. 

Things didn't go exactly as planned: life has a habit of throwing up the unexpected. But we got there and had lots of fun along the way, especially during filming. However, doing a speedy edit and post-production on the Sunday when already tired was quite a slog. 

"Film-making is a muscle," said Ben Wheatley at a Q&A the other week after a screening of his new film BULK. That is to say, you only get better by keeping on making them. I agree. Every time I've brought one to completion I've learnt a bit more about how to structure a project, how to think about narrative (or anti-narrative), how to shoot, how to edit, how to deal with sound.

Never Touch the Ground is very rough and pretty silly and I am sure it's not the best film any of us will ever make, but it was an intense learning experience. We hope it will be part of the screening at Two Short Nights on Friday 6th March.

The year so far

Work in progress for inclusion in The Future Present | 2026

January didn't get off to a good start when I heard that an application I'd made with another artist to be part of the Freelands Foundation's Two Together studio programme had failed. We felt we had a strong application, but we didn't even get to interview.

The thought of spending a month in a large, purpose-built studio space (as opposed to my kitchen table, a muddy field or a windy beach) was a wonderful thing to contemplate. But, as with so many opportunities advertised at the moment, the competition (for even a modest fee) was impossibly intense. The cursory rejection, after so much shared effort on our part, made me look at two other proposals I was drafting and almost give up.

Now I'm left with an even sharper awareness of my lack of a permanent studio - one of the factors that is driving me towards moving image practice. Digital video and sound can be planned at home, made on location, edited at a desk and stored on a drive. But, in parallel, I would still like to be able to let "my fingers do the thinking" as my fellow artist Stella Tripp puts it, and that means a dedicated space, even if it's just a table at home that's used for nothing else. It's led me to consider permanent rental of offsite storage to clear some space in my house. It feels counter-intuitive to rent commercial storage rather than a studio, but this kind of space is far more readily available in Exeter, and in some cases actually cheaper.

In better news, I'm looking forward to the inaugural cinema screening of my new film The Porous Body at Two Short Nights in March.  I'm also cooking up plans with Frankie Williams to take on the 48 Hour Film Challenge - writing, shooting and editing a three-minute film to a brief that won't be known until the 48-hour countdown begins. In the meantime we've been checking tech, scouting locations and gathering props, costumes and potential extras.

More good news is that a piece I wrote on class and its impact on my art career has been accepted by Axis for a forthcoming publication. This was so difficult to talk about that I resorted to metaphor and now feel I bottled out - especially when I heard Sarah Ryder talk (see below).  But I really think it's something we need to acknowledge, so I don't regret having a go. (See a previous attempt here.)

I've also made 200 tiny packets of seeds and shipped them off to Nick Davies at Loophole Projects for inclusion in a forthcoming publication The Future Present. 

And despite a strong urge to hibernate, I've made an effort to be out and about at film screenings and various artists talks and meetings.  I truly believe one of the best individual actions we can take in the current geopolitical climate is to stay connected and look out for each other. Today's outing was to see Sarah Ryder closing her fabulous show Multiferals at Exeter Phoenix with a fascinating talk that underlined how limitations (of class, space, time etc) need not hold us back. Far better to work right up to and bounce hard against them: resourcefulness can have amazing results.