Artist & Video Maker based in Liverpool
I’m part of the Men Dancing group started by Chris Ball and Jen Hale in 2017. We’ve been looking at ways to translate dance ideas into film, tricky to develop collectively as a group but we’ve made a great start here with Crossing The Bar. Full film available soon.
Excited to say that I’ve won first place in the LCR Photo Awards 2023. I submitted 5 photographs around the theme of coastal communities and the climate crisis and 3 of them have been chosen for exhibition which opens tomorrow and runs until 23rd April. There were 1900 entries, so I’m pretty chuffed to have won the analogue category.
More information ban be found on the Open Eye’s website here.CR23
For the past six months I’ve been running a regular monthly beginners photography course over in Runcorn. It’s an older group, originally formed to support men who were suffering with anxiety, over time the group has expended to anyone with an interest in photography.
I structured each session around a particular technique beginning with exposure with month one followed by composition, flash, basic editing and last week, simple Cyanotype prints.
It’s been great to watch the group develop – we split each session into a mixture of theory and practical experiments which seemed to suit everyone’s different needs. Some members of the group are a bit more advanced in some areas, and we happy to support others with less experience.
The Cyanipe session was fun – we’re going to continue this next month and then plan in some basic editing sessions. I’m expecting great things from this group in the future so watch out.
Testing out some small scale multimedia interactions around the work I’ve been doing with the Friends of Rimrose Valley Country Park in North Liverpool. National Highways would like to build a four lane highway right through the middle of the park to service the port of Liverpool.
This test work aims to look at what would be lost, using Cyanotype prints to represent local people in their changing environment.
Working with Artist Lou Chapelle. Holographic video projection in woodland settings at Knowsley Safari Park (part of Enchanted 2023)
Commissioned by Heart of Glass, Creative People and Places program by Arts Council England
With the support of Knowsley Safari Park
I was lucky enough to work on this commission with Colette Whittington, responding to the Tyneside Cinema’s Archive Collection. We created two installation entitled ‘Junior (Experimental) Film Club’ and ‘Lantern Projections’, which respond to the respective collections of film programmes produced by young people in the 1930-50’s and the collection of glass lantern slides which advertised products and cinema jobs before the feature films.
Our approach to the cinema archives was pretty open, preferring the stories to emerge as we immersed ourselves in them. However, a clear focus presented itself to us naturally as we explored; the many voices of the cinema’s people, the fabric and DNA of the cinema resonated loudly. These works pay homage to those people”
As part of our research we also ran a number of print Making and animation workshops with the staff which was a great way to meet everyone and get to know more about the cinema.
Tyneside Cinema’s Archive Commissions also feature audio-visual works by Adina Nelu which will play before main feature films, and a series of beautiful poster prints from Sofia Barton, all on display in the cinema now. Tyneside Cinema Archive Commissions are supported with public funding by Arts Council England.
2022
Double holographic projections and soundtrack in Thai-inspired wooden structure.
Commissioned by the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science at the University of Leeds and funded by the Arts and Humanity Research Council (AHRC), with extra support from Halton Borough Council.
I was part of a creative team led by artists Lou Chapelle working on the video element of the project, responding to work of other artists and community members involved, voices that are often unheard when we talk about climate crisis and extinction.
The artwork responds to these questions, engaging and drawing upon personal responses to extinction from diverse backgrounds and experiences (including asylum seekers and refugees temporarily housed at Daresbury Park Hotel, Runcorn and those supported by A Better Tomorrow and Trinity Safe Space, Wat Phra Singh UK Buddhist Temple trustees and dancers from Runcorn, Men Dancing from Liverpool, The Studio Writes and The Studio Sings groups in Widnes). People experiencing the piece are also invited to write their responses and attach them to the structure.
Other members of the creative team were:
Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies Dr Stefan Skrimshire
Composer and choir leader Jennifer John
Dancer Kali Chandrasegaram
Costume designer Rachael Prime
Poet Scott Farlow
Photography Robert Battersby
Project co-ordinator Louise Nulty
Production advise Dan Williamson
I was commissioned to produce some new work for the newly opened Shakespeare North Theatre in Prescott to tie into the ‘Serious Nonsense Festival’, part of Knowlesy’s Borough of Culture year.
I developed these two pieces around the nonsense poems of Edward Lear as well as celebrating the newly opened theatre. You can find out more about the festival at the link here.
A film collaboration with Lou Chapelle. Through a series of creative workshops,local creative practitioners and young people who live and study in Halton created costumes, dance, poetry, and sound. Together they re-imagined the Bleach Packers, iconic workers from the borough’s past, by creating a holographic video. The resulting artwork enacts a surreal Bleach Packer’s dream, in which he finds himself transformed, torn between chemical and nature. The work was displayed in different public settings around the borough.
For the last 5 years I have been working with Artists Robin Whitmore and Mark Whitelaw on Duckie’s The Slaughterhouse Club.
The Slaughterhouse Club was a participatory arts project with homeless vulnerable Londoners struggling with booze and addiction issues. The project ran for forty weeks per year until 2020.
The participants – about 45 hostel residents regularly working throughout the year – were treated as artists and encouraged to make creative work. Together they make songs, poems, stories, short plays, animations, puppet shows, slide shows, paintings, films and videos. The Slaughterhouse Club engaged residents of the hostels to connect with themselves and their community through the creation of these arts activities – to aid harm minimisation and personal growth.
The work was very delicate and the hostel environment is very unpredictable. Our participants lead chaotic lives, and struggle with entrenched alcohol and drug addictions, fragile mental health and often run-ins with the authorities. Most of the work was one-to-one, drawing out creativity through personal conversations and developing inventive exercises. The Slaughterhouse Club was produced by Duckie in association with Thames Reach Hostels and funded by the Big Lottery Fund and Vauxhall One.