AMY ASH

Re-Interpretation Panel is a collaborative work made with Alice McCabe during a residency on Fogo Island. Tangentially part of the project, Adventitious Routes and Rhizomes, it was made possible through the hospitality and support of the Museum of the Flat Earth, Fogo Island, Newfoundland.

Re-Interpretation Panel was created in response to the problematic didactic panel positioned at the Sandy Cove side of Turpin’s Trail.

“If you’ve been to Fogo Island and hiked this trail, you may have been startled to see an old weathered didactic panel offensively highlighting a 19th century colonial account of an alleged murder of a settler man by the Beothuks dwelling in the area. Ash and McCabe intervened in the racist text by hinging a printed cyanotype cover to the didactic panel; the interruption once again presents the silhouettes of their own cultivars, offering a field guide to spot invasive species such as the aggressive and fast spreading “Pardium Peregrinus” along the trail. “Watch Your Step” the artists warn with their botany.”

Excerpt from: CULTIVAR: Artists as botanists at the Museum of the Flat Earth

By D’Arcy Wilson

Re-Interpretation Panel draws attention to complications of settlement and one-sided narratives, using the language of botanical wisdom. It is a critical layer to question the 19th century colonial account by detailing some of the local plants that are plentiful near the path. It also discusses the story of an aggressive invasive species, “Paradigm Peregrinus” and its relation to “Gabro Insum” a plant species which is now believed to be extinct.

THANK YOU: Alice McCabe, Kay Burns, Maddison Miller & The Museum of the Flat Earth

2018

An experimental curiosity-driven cyanotype workshop at the National Gallery, London.

I was invited by the National Gallery’s Young Producers to participate in an evening of arts talks and workshops centred around colour. The event was curated by the team of young people as a counterpoint to the National Gallery’s exhibition, Monochrome: Painting in Black and White.

THANK YOU: National Gallery London, Young Producers, Bella Biddle

PHOTOS: Jason Wen

2018

Tidal Resonance imagines the tides are the very memory of Grand Manan; together, we unpick coastal living and what it means to live on an island. Using the tides—the associated imagery, strength of impact and inevitability—as an access point to discuss memory and the passage of time, we (myself, artist & teacher Sara Griffin, and Grand Manan Community School students) collaborated to create a body of work which speaks to the many layers of our experience as coastal dwellers, drawing out a collective voice.

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I travelled across on the ferry. I have memories of childhood vacations on Grand Manan; of spitting tictacs overboard into the sea, pretending they were pearls; of getting dangerously far out on the Hole In the Wall and being goaded back to solid land by my father while my mother held her face in her hands. It’s been many years since I’ve spent time in this place.

This time I am travelling for an Artist In Residence project at Grand Manan Community School. I arrive at the school and meet the students. We discuss tides, memory, layers and being bordered on all sides by the ocean. We comb the beach and remove what is not meant to be there. We learn to use the sunlight, even on a foggy Atlantic day, to make cyanotypes from the debris collected — bottles, fishing rope, a multitude of plastics and some empty shells. We wonder whether the beach will ever be more beach than plastic or if we’ve hit the point of no return. With every tide comes a ring around the shore of styrofoam, plastic bottles, lobster elastics and rope. You could pick it all up daily and there would still be more.

While we are busying our hands—making three dimensional collages and chemigrams —we share stories; tales from before borrowed from grandparents; adventures of youth; favourite places; and instances when we’ve left or wanted to leave this place. We spend two weeks together this way and the Tidal Resonance exhibition is evidence of experience.

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Working together as an embodied collage, we create a large assemblage—we are a room full of artists and curators—to piece together a portrait, not only of our time together but also a sketch of the very experience of islandness.

This project was made possible by the generous support of Tourism, Heritage & Culture New Brunswick.

THANK YOU:

Tourism, Heritage & Culture New Brunswick, Sara Griffin, Grand Manan Community School, Grand Manan Gallery

2017

BLUE NOISE is a collaborative installation between Debbie Kent, Sonia Mangiapane, Rachael Allain & myself as part of PLACE EXPLORATION, a multi-disciplinary residency held at Kestle Barton.

Set at dusk, after a full day at the greenhouse.

In approaching the greenhouse the light of blue escaping the closed door changes as the image fades and is replaced continuously.

Moving closer to the space a conversation filters through the air-- a group dialogue about cyanotypes and time and history. The sound moves through the crowd so it is hard to know where it started. The images, projected cyanotypes, continue to fade in and out. Rounding the side of the greenhouse, other not-quite-human sounds become audible as a small beam of light comes into view. The sound could almost be natural, but there is something uncanny about the concentration of it. Looking into the greenhouse through a broken window, there is a video shining out. Upside down and shaky with movement, three people wander through a field.

We spent an afternoon at the greenhouse, making attempts to participate in the transience and time of the place. We talked, we listened. Rather than collecting still specimens, we made non-disruptive cyanotypes, possibly even tracing the plant growth along with the changing light of day. We listened deeply and made attempts to participate in the aural environment by joining the chorus of sounds. We walked the periphery to talk, while learning small distances in footsteps and gathered ideas, finally taking the conversations back to the greenhouse.

Thank you Kestle Barton, Bram Arnold, Davis & Jones, Arts Council England, the greenhouse and its plant inhabitants and all of the PLACE EXPLORATION participants.

2017

ob•jec•ti•fy
to represent concretely; present as an object. 
Also: objectivate
objectification n

The bathroom is a space which signals personal privacy, hygiene and also presentation. It is within our cultural narrative to view the bathroom as a place where we can shamelessly observe ourselves and prepare the face we will show the world.

This bathroom residency project proposes to borrow the language of museum curatorship, using the display of objects as a pedagogical tool for the sharing and layering of personal experience.

In the bathroom there will be a collection of objects of misunderstood value* unconventionally labelled with single words, unlikely descriptions or phrases intended to prompt the imagination or memory of the viewer. Viewers enjoy a moment of solitude in the private space of the bathroom to examine the exhibit in detail. Each viewer is invited to respond to a portion of exhibit by communicating directly to any object; in turn the object will remember up to 20 seconds of aural information and keep it, verbatim, to pass on to the next visitor.

One after the other, viewers will be invited into the bathroom for their own moment of solitude and discovery, as they listen to what the curious objects in the exhibit have to say.

Throughout the duration the museum docent will be situated in a corner of the bathroom. They will welcome viewers to the exhibition and then go about their duties with earplugs.

This event will be recorded aurally in its entirety, though no video will be taken, maintaining the anonymity of those who share their experiences with the objects.

*An object of misunderstood value is something which has been kept/collected/found. It has no clear value and perhaps no clear purpose; and yet, it is something one cannot bring oneself to throw away.

The Bathroom Residency is an unconventional project which opens a functional bathroom within a private residential home in Putney, London, UK, to an artist and then, in turn, to the public. The Bathroom Residency is conceived organised and curated by Alice McCabe. 

THANK YOU: The Bathroom Residency & Alice McCabe

PHOTOS: Alice McCabe

2017

“Every Migration is a promise…” opens Jacques Perrin in the 2001 film, Winged Migration.

This project was commissioned by Cubitt Education as part of an extensive programme, exploring ‘Journeys’, for the Islington Word Festival, 2017. 

We started by looking at Winged Migration, which charts avian migrations around the world, to get a sense not only of the distances travelled, but the poetics of the act. From this starting point, we began to use birds in migration to create our own iconography to represent the idea of journeying. 

Collaging and layering personally relevant maps and bird imagery, we discussed our own journeys--near and far, true, imagined, literal and metaphoric. 

There was much to learn about ourselves, our families and the current state of the world—with more people migrating than ever before. While avian migration is an annual promise to return, humans who leave in search of a safer/better life spend an average of 25 years away from their home, or point of departure, before they are able to return. 

George, from Scotland, joined the Navy as a young man. He’s lived in London ever since. Affraline, originally from Jamaica, moved to London in the 1960’s. She has never seen the English coast—the last time she saw the vastness of an ocean was in Jamaica. Flo has travelled around the UK and some of Europe, but she always returns to London and considered the area code she grew up in to be home. 

We compiled our stories and drawings into a short animation which was screened publicly, at Islington Town Hall, London, part of the Islington Word Festival, in June 2017.

THANK YOU: The Mildmay Group, Marian Howell, Esther Collins, Belle Benham, Cubitt Education, Nottinghill Housing Association, Islington Word Festival.

PHOTOS: Belle Benham, Marta Corada & Amy Ash 

Bound Together; Tracing Roots was commissioned by Orleans House Gallery as part of their partnership with the Richmond EAL Friendship Centre. 

This eight week project aimed to use the gallery's permanent collection to connect diverse members of West London's EAL community. 

In my research of the Orleans House Gallery permanent collection, I was struck by the 26 paintings of unknown provenance; in particular, Portrait of Elizabeth Twining. Through tangential research I learned that Elizabeth Twining was a botanic illustrator whose work includes both species native to the UK and abroad, often in combination with one another in the same composition. Through this work, we sought to open a dialogue related to human migration through the metaphor and poetics of the flora and greenery, of very diverse origins, which can now be found within London gardens and parks. With this portrait of unknown provenance as a staring point, we delved into the concept of provenance, connecting and mapping evidence of human migration and experience through the plant life which now grows strong and free in London.

Through the sessions we made field trips to collect specimens, identified plants using smart phone apps and books, shared stories and language, and mapped our own stories through our botanical illustrations and paper cuttings.

Our varied research produced hand bound sketchbooks, notes, botanical sketches and finished specimens of paper-cut flora which maps our own journey.

THANK YOU: Orleans House Gallery, Charlotte Cranidge, Elizabeth Fraser-Betts, Richmond EAL Friendship Centre.

PHOTOS: Charlotte Cranidge 

2016

"A light here requires a shadow there"

Virginia Woolf

I was invited to design and deliver this session as part of Saturday Socials, a Cubitt Arts programme for adults in the Islington area of London.

With a collection of found objects, flora and greenery, we challenged ourselves to let go by creating unexpected compositions on photographic paper. 

Chemigram is a process of embodied serendipity. Using photographic paper and darkroom chemistry to capture traces of the textures and properties of the objects which come into contact with the paper, exposing it in unusual and ghostly ways. It is a process which causes us to be present -- it is immediate and reactive -- to tease out the light, through direct interaction with the objects themselves.

THANK YOU: Cubitt Education & Belle Benham 

PHOTOS: Marta Cortada

2017

MUSCLE WIRE was Gerald Moore Gallery’s spring 2017 commission. A process driven project, it consisted of a research-led residency and exhibition involving two contemporary artists and a diverse group of A Level students from three south London schools.

For one month, Amy Ash and Emma Finn worked alongside fourteen dedicated young people, using Gerald Moore Gallery as their studio space. Together, they carried out collaborative action-based research related to the future of memory. The artists were brought together by a shared interest in humankind’s ever-evolving relationship with information gathering and storage. The young people involved in MUSCLE WIRE were selected from the diverse communities of Eltham College, Erith School and Thomas Tallis School.

MUSCLE WIRE aimed to offer an alternative to traditional learning environments by inviting a group of young people to work alongside artists, both leading and assisting in the research generated. Working toward a common goal, the project strived to develop a shared trust in the value of collaboration and the emergent creative process. 

In keeping with the gallery’s mandate to operate as a space which considers new approaches to learning, the MUSCLE WIRE commission was a space where regular educational hierarchies were dismantled.

THANK YOU: Megan Abbs, Bella Biddle, Naomi Blackman, Kaitlyn Boxall, Emma Finn, Izzy Fletcher, Nisha Giri, Gala Hales, Peter Harpin, Maddie Harris, Alex Jones, Sarah King, Charlotte Marsh, Lydia Middleton, Lily Page and, also, Elinor Brass, David Hughes, Dianne Minnicucci, Lucy Williams and Gerald Moore Gallery.

2016

"Yet occasionally we discover in the folds of an old handkerchief a shell or insignificant stone that had once embodied our happiest of afternoons."  

Patti Smith

I was invited to design and deliver this session as part of Saturday Socials, a Cubitt Arts programme for adults in the Islington area of London.

Surfacing aimed to assist in the building of new skills and also the consideration of objectified memory.

Armed with found objects, originally sentimental but disconnected from our own experience, we gesture towards memory. 

The cyanotype process requires us to labour over the objects and the chemistry.

Sifting through other people’s objectified memories, we make selections—old lace, found photographs, cut and pressed flowers— and lay them onto paper. We layer meaning and expose our intentions to the UV light. Once exposed, we discard the objects. We reach into cool liquid and bathe the paper in water. It surfaces new.

THANK YOU: Cubitt Education & Belle Benham 

PHOTOS: Marta Cortada

2016

What is the past/present/future of memory?

- an emotional attachment

-an archive

-a daydream

-the cloud

-storage

-fiction

-data

This project spans over four weeks of Gerald Moore Gallery’s after school programme for children in years 7-9.

These sessions begin with speculative research into the field of memory and mnemonics.  We spend the first session trouble-shooting plans and creating imaginative devices to support our theories about the future of memory.

From mind maps and diagrams we designed costumes and science fiction inspired props, then put them on to test their validity and function. From reflective gear which intends to repel memories to creased folds intended to encase the memory, there were many hypotheses and many experiments.

These test photos then provided the perfect basis to create studies of our theories, along with narratives which recall the reader of the importance and function of each costume/prop/theory.

Thank you Gerald Moore Gallery.

2016

An object of misunderstood value is something which has been kept/collected/found. It has no clear value and perhaps no clear purpose; and yet, it is something one cannot bring oneself to throw away. Sometimes these are personal--photographs of past lovers, used concert tickets, clothing which has become too small. Other times these are curiosities collected from the street, flea markets or even online; perhaps the object is evidence of something more meaningful or perhaps it was purely superficial.  In any case, like artefacts under museum glass, these misunderstood everyday objects find power through their amalgamation and their presentation.

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noun: assemblage

plural noun: assemblages

-a collection or gathering of things or people.

-a machine or object made of pieces fitted together.

-a work of art made by grouping together found or unrelated objects.

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Artist as collector, scavenger, interpreter, curator, archaeologist.

object as artefact/artefact as fiction

“All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation”

Walter Benjamin

Artists are notorious collectors of things. In their collections, artists find great meaning and value.This workshop takes it starting point by recognizing everyday objects of misunderstood value and finding their purpose by using them first for play exploration and problem solving.

Each artist-teacher participant selects a word at random. Using the word as a catalyst, they are given the challenge of creating an installation using the objects at hand. Each word is a past theme from a GCSE or A Level exam paper. Together, we created an exhibition which acts as a glimpse into the recent history of secondary art education in the UK. In addition, the installation gives new meaning and worth to objects which were ambiguous in both value and purpose.

The Objects of Misunderstood Value workshop was designed for TEA (Thinking, Expression, Action) National Sketchbook Circle’s Summer School. The TEA National Sketchbook Summer School was a beautiful weekend in July wherein a group of artist teachers from across the UK and beyond travelled to South East London for two days jam-packed with workshops, professional development, fun and networking.

Thank you Elinor Brass, Georgia Naish and the TEA National Sketchbook Circle.

2015-2016

insta & twitter: #youthuncovered

Youth Uncovered is a youth curatorial programme I was commissioned to devise especially for Gerald Moore Gallery. The project involves a group of amazing young people from three South London schools.

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Youth Uncovered is a collective of young artists/curators who have facilitated a new group exhibition of the same name. The Youth Uncovered exhibition has been curated especially for Gerald Moore Gallery, whose mandate is to act as a testing ground for the exploration of emancipatory pedagogies and lateral learning.

An ambitious experimental and experiential curatorial initiative, Youth Uncovered asks the question, what does it mean to be a young person today? In structure, Youth Uncovered interrogates social and educational hierarchies by supporting young people to curate an exhibition of professional contemporary art. The Youth Uncovered curatorial team is made up of 15 young people from three South London secondary schools. The group joined forces in June of 2015, placing an international call for submissions and making their selections from an outstanding number of proposals. Since autumn 2015 they have been working diligently both learning from and leading the professional artists in their research and understanding of what it means to be a young person today.

Featured artists:

Diana and Eleanor Burch, Fiona Grady, Linnea Haviland and Andrew Milne.

This programme was designed and delivered by Amy Ash.

Youth Uncovered are honoured to have received the generous support of the National Lottery through Arts Council England for this project.

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Thank you also to Gerald Moore Gallery, Eltham College, Thomas Tallis School, East Dulwich Harris Academy for Girls--especially, Elinor Brass, Jon Nicholls, Clare Stanhope and the amazing Youth Uncovered group.

2015

Dear Saint John,

I think of you every day and I feel the distance between us.

Sometimes I wonder how things would be different had I stayed with you.

I remember the quiet times I sat with you and how you guided my every step. You were all of my firsts. If we’d met in another time, I would have been yours alone. But we both live for the sea and whisper secrets to the sky. I got carried away, out with the tide.

Sometimes I can still hear your voice from afar, drifting across to me in the breeze.

I love you more with every remembering.

Yours always,

A

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Dear Saint John: I love you more with every remembering...

For every young maritimer living in Altantic Canada, there is one who has moved on.  The displaced find one another in remote corners and spin yarns about the places they’ve loved and left behind, building lore that battles heartache.

There are many reasons to walk away from a beloved place—sometimes you only realize you love something when it’s gone.

#witheveryremembering

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Dear Saint John: I Love You More with Every Remebering is a commission for Third Space Gallery and their inaugural Art Works After Dark festival, Third Shift. Saint John, N.B.

http://www.thirdshift.ca/blog/2015/8/4/third-shift-spotlight-amy-ash

I Love You More with Every Remembering invites people to reminisce about a place they’ve loved and left behind. It encourages people to write love letters to places that continue inhabit them in some way, even though they are no longer within their geographical borders. The text from the letters becomes a palimpsest of longing and appreciation, lighting up the night in a port city, like many others, with a history of displacement—people coming and going, through force or choice; it continues still. Likewise, this project is ongoing.

To contribute to this project, email your love letters to:

witheveryremembering@gmail.com

or post them to:

102 Brownhill Rd, London, UK, SE6 2DH

Thank you, Third Space Gallery. And thank you to everyone who contributed to the project far and wide.

PHOTOS: Alex Warren

Participatory Installation, 20 metres of screen printed fabric, overhead projector, love letters, audio recording of love letters being read.

2014 - present

Calque refers a ‘loan translation’. This is a word-for-word translation from one language to another, with the potentiality to lose meaning through the directness of the translation. In French, calque means to ‘copy’ or ‘trace’.

Calque is an ongoing project which explores both placelessness and attachment to place. It was born out of the marriage of my own excitement at exploring a new city and my homesickness.

I follow hand penned maps and directions to ‘someplace special’—usually 'home'—which were either found or given to me by friends around the world. I follow them to the best of my ability, through the streets of London without knowing where they will lead, building experience and layering disjointed memories through the borrowed and misused maps. Often, because of the vast differences in landscape, I find myself looking for green spaces in the urban environment to fulfill the act of ‘crossing a field’ or lawn, as are often present in directions from rural Canada. Occasionally I use the Thames as a reference for the coast that is lacking in the city of London. It is an act of absurdity which has allowed me to explore corners of the city I would otherwise not have seen and, in some way it allows me an uncertain connection to ‘home’. I document these expeditions with images and sound and trace my surroundings on sheets of acetate (literally holding them up and tracing the landscape) then I layer them over and over, mimicking memory, time, and perspective, while creating a complex system of veins which speak of the life of the place and experience.

Although this project evolved intuitively, it has grown into an investigation into the legacy of the psychogeographer, who embodies the desire to renew language, social life and oneself, while also revealing the city’s underlying structure.

Images from trip n.1

2016

Tracing Possibilities is session within of a longer programme designed individuals who reside at a Nottinghill Housing Association's extra care unit. This workshop, and the greater series, are part of Cubitt Education's programme of community engagement for people over the age of 55.

Using found photographs as a starting point, we trace the important areas onto acetate and illuminate the drawings with the nearly obsolete technology of an overhead projector. Layering our drawings in odd combinations, we allow them to evolve into narratives, anecdotes and possible moments in time.

We find out that the woman in one photograph looks like Joan's mother, while another is wearing nearly the same print that is found on Afroline's dress. Layered, the images take on entirely new possibilities.

Thank you Belle Benham, Marian Howell, The Residents and staff of Nottinghill Housing Association and CUBITT.

PHOTOS were taken by Belle Benham and are courtesy of Cubitt.

2015

This learning programme was devised especially for Gordon Primary School’s year six groups. They were working across the curriculum with the theme of Seaside.

Through much discussion, many questions and experiments, we decided the sea is the one thing which both binds us all and emphasizes the vastness of the world.

“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
- William James

This programme was delivered in four sessions, consisting of a mix of dialogue, research and hands on making. Sessions took place at both Gerald Moore Gallery and Gordon Primary School.

Together we created a giant textile piece, 8 metres long, a collection of our thoughts about the sea and our memories from the seaside. A combination of words, objects, paint and stitching, this textile tells the story of our understanding of and experience with the sea.

The middle of the project was punctuated by a class trip to the seaside—for at least one student, it was their first time visiting the coast.

Likewise, for many this was their first time using a needle and thread; and yet we managed to connect all of the pieces so they form a new object which is bigger than all of us.

It is designed to cascade and hang from a great height.

Thank you Gerald Moore Gallery, Gordon Primary School and Marilyn Lee

2015

This workshop was written and delivered for Eltham College Junior School, year five, who were studying the work of Paul Klee in class.

Watercolour & Weaving. Challenging the two dimensional quality of the page by using it as a material to sculpt and weave, we used Paul Klee’s Fire at Evening as a launch pad for discussion and creation.

Thank you, Gerald Moore Gallery and Eltham College.

2012-2013

The Revaluables is made up of a collection of abandoned mementos; each piece carefully recorded with a hand drawn diagram, including background details of unclear verity.  The installation invites the viewer make a keepsake of any piece in the exhibit, providing they leave something (anything) of equal value in its place.  The worth of both items is entirely up to the discretion of the viewer.  In choosing their memento and making the exchange, the viewer attaches a worth to an object that otherwise has no true market value.  The viewer’s contribution then, in turn, becomes part of the installation. With each exchange, the new object is logged with a hand drawn diagram and nestled into the installation, taking the place of the piece for which it was traded.

Forcing the viewer to pause and question why they are drawn to certain pieces, and how they might translate their worth, The Revaluables is an experiment in attachments, abandonment and sentimental value.

This installation was first shown as part of the Dooryard Arts Festival in Woodstock, New Brunswick, 2012. It was then invited by Curator Noa Bronstein to the Gladstone Hotel’s Fly by Night as part of Nuit Blanche, Toronto, 2013.

PHOTOS: Krystle Merrow

2015

This programme was designed for Eltham College Junior School’s year three students.

How does the best story begin?

Do you know it by heart?

How will you remember it and what does it look like?

This learning programme looks at developing drawing skills, storytelling and building an understanding of collaborative practice through the group construction of a large installation.

Together we look at the value of images as tools to prompt memory, creating illustrations which help us to narrate the stories we’ve written. In small groups we wrote and performed our own illustrated stories using the overhead projector to animate the tales.

Thank you, Eltham College Junior School and Gerald Moore Gallery.

2014

This stand-alone workshop was designed and delivered in collaboration with Mandy Franklin for a TEA (Thinking, Expression, Action) National Sketchbook Circle Symposium for artist teachers. 

We started with a variety of lenses, some recycled cardboard boxes, scissors, masking tape, tracing paper and felt tip pens. Using these materials, we each constructed a camera obscura. We used our new devices to make studies of the other workshops running concurrently within the gallery.

Lead by Elinor Brass, Susan Coles and Georgia Nash, The Sketchbook Circle have over 300 members from around the UK.

Thank you, Mandy Franklin, Elinor Brass, Gerald Moore Gallery and The Sketchbook Circle.

2012

The Originals is a biennial event held in Saint John, New Brunswick. It is a heartfelt and enthusiast celebration of arts and culture.

I was commissioned by The Originals to create a collection of handmade awards and present a visual concept which would run throughout the entire event, including the stage design, all printed material and online information. I worked very closely with graphic designer Jessica Rhaye and event designer Judith Mackin.

The cast of characters included in the visual concept is made up of individuals who were instrumental in the development of the landscape of the city of Saint John's vibrant arts and culture community. Some of their stories were already widely known, and some less so. I worked with the Saint John Public library and New Brunswick Museum archives in order to unearth the imagery and lore.

Thank you to Judith Mackin, Jessica Rhaye, Harold Wright and David Goss.

PHOTOS: Kelly Lawson & Sebastien Benoit

2015

This workshop was designed for a primary school visit to Gerald Moore Gallery.

Using the exhibition on show at the gallery (Madi Boyd’s Sculpting Motion: The Fickle Screen) we explored the distances between science, maths and art using light and the principles of geometry. The exhibition helped us to find that they weren’t as far apart as we might have imagined.

Taking a cue from Boyd’s immersive work, we created a collaborative installation together using light, line, and 3D forms.  And teamwork, lots of teamwork.

Thank you, Gerald Moore Gallery and Madi Boyd.

2014

London is in constant flux--in a state of constant building and rebuilding. The cranes which dot the skyline are a tell tale sign, but the age of the city is equally apparent; there is a balance.

In this workshop, children aged between 3 and 12 years old discuss this balance and design their London, rebuilding it as they imagine it would/could/should be.

This workshop was designed and delivered in partnership with Alex Warren for The South East London Diabetes Association.

2014

The design of this workshop was requested to help students understand abstraction, as well as shape vs. form.

We began by filling A3 sheets of cartridge and kraft paper with as many experiments in mark-making as we could. Once the paper was filled with beautiful experiments in 2D, children were asked to start over, making something new from the piece they thought they'd finished.

2015

The Centre for Imaginary Communication is a response to the Orbits and Occults exhibition, specifically Amalie Atkins’ film work, Listening to the Past/Listening to the Future.

Together we discussed our own personal cosmologies and what fuels them. The group of 11-15 year-olds sited methods of communication and related devices as something incredibly important to their social lives but, conversely, a deterrent to authentic communication. We decided to have fun with this duality by creating alternate devices for imaginary communications, performing their use and detailing their functionality.

Thank you Amalie Atkins and Gerald Moore Gallery.

2015

An experimental workshop wherein a group of 11-15 year-olds experiment with colour, light and form.

They began by capturing recognizable forms (feathers, fabric, sticks, straws) by casting them in paper clay. The paper clay allowed them to obtain a pure white representation of the thing itself. From here we set out to transform the objects entirely, confusing the form with light and colour.

2015

Together we viewed the exhibition, Orbits and Occults. The group became fascinated with Ehryn Torrell's piece Running Hand, which employs a mechanical drawing device to scrawl her images continuously onto a large roll of paper, which gathers on the gallery floor. We watched the performance of the machine, moving almost human-like, and decided to make our own experiments.

Thank you Ehryn Torrell

2014

This workshop was part of a weekly art programme for 6-10 year olds. The Tree House Project is a playful response to a dialogue concerning the iconography of the British Tree. After viewing the exhibition, Under the Greenwood, we created their own tree-houses and installed them, making a community, outside.

This workshop was designed and delivered in collaboration with Alex Warren.

2014

Field Notes was created in collaboration with Eltham College’s Physics Department. The cross-curricularlearning art/science programme reached every year 9 student within the department, using Martin Newth’s new commission, Material Matters as a starting point. The programme was nestled into the year 9 physics curriculum supporting their optics learning.

Together students constructed, through trial and error, a selection of camera obscuras and documented the surroundings, trouble-shooting distortion, light leaks and focus issues. These field notes were then assembled into a portrait of the gallery and school.

Thank you, Gerald Moore Gallery, Eltham College and Martin Newth.

2012

Redeemed, the Fred Ross mural project speaks of a cultural renaissance; it tells the story of a lost artwork of great regional importance, destroyed through negligence.  The lost mural, originally painted as a memorial to wartime was painted by Fred Ross, as a young artist. In commissioning three local artists to 're-animate' this lost work, the province of New Brunswick and The University of New Brunswick are making a distinct point to re-value the work and highlight a changing attitude towards the importance of the arts within the community.

This project saw the 400 square foot dyptic mural reanimated by a small team of three artists, Sara Griffin, Fred Willar and myself. Overseeing our every brush stroke was Fred Ross, the artist behind the creation of the original mural. No long able to paint such a large scale work himself, he directed us to paint it as he would--a difficult task which tested the communication skills of all involved. Trying to be as true to the original as possible, we worked from Ross's templates and original drawings and goaded our strokes into a mimicry of his own.

The project was supported by the province of New Brunswick and commissioned by The University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, where it is currently on permanent exhibition within the Currie Centre.

Thank you Fred Ross, Sara Griffin, Fred Willar, William Forrestall, Jamie WIlson, John Leroux, UNB, The Sheila Hugh MacKay Foundation, Province of New Brunswick and the Saint John Arts Centre.

2014

Working alongside the History and Geography departments, this project was created to connect dots between curricular areas, as well as between past and present.

With a focus on times of conflict, this project used maps, stories and current affairs to interrogate the concept of borders, exploring the flux, poetics and strength in the lines we've drawn between us.

Thank you Eltham College and Gerald Moore Gallery.

2019

A Shared Geometry is a collaboration between myself, Kelly Layden, George Street Middle School, and Brilliant Labs.

Using geometry as a metaphor for the ways in which we find our place and fit together, A Shared Geometry is about the individual navigating the collective and finding belonging amid differences.

The project called fourteen young people with diverse backgrounds together to spend two months in collaboration. Through conversation and experimentation, each participant created a pentagon tile with unique imagery which speaks to their individual experience; but the tiles cannot stand alone. To be properly displayed and lit from within, each pentagon tile requires the support of both the internal geometric structure and the tiles which surround it.

A Shared Geometry was made possible with the generous support of the NB Department of Early Childhood Development and NB Tourism Heritage and Culture.

2012-2013

We often see important objects and documents trapped in time. Encasing mementos in resin is a sign that they are appreciated, that someone valued them enough to save them from torn edges and folded corners. The treatment transforms an ordinary object/memento into an artefact.

I’ve collected abandoned family snapshots, originally bound for the garbage can.  Their provenance is unknown, they are nameless and ageless.  I’ve treated them to some material alterations, giving them my complete attention, and sheathed them with industrial grade resin.

Despite my best efforts to preserve the artefacts, the chemistry of the resin could affect the object or cause it to tell a different story, in time making it more akin to its etymological relative the digital artefact.

found photographs, found metal, hand-stitching and paper-cutting, ink and industrial grade epoxy resin.

sizes range from 6x8inches to 11x 17 inches.