Rerooting

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Stained Glass with Projection Mapping (2022)

This piece uses the tradition of stained-glass-making as its base with the more contemporary techniques of digital animation and projection mapping to add the colour and movement.

PAST SHOWINGS

Medway Open Studios
Mess Room
July 2022

Feeling Animated

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Stop Motion Animations (2022)

Animation project for primary school children looking at our emotions and how we can deal with them. These videos were used as the basis for discussions as well as examples of stop motion animation to accompany practical workshops.

Story and voiceover by Ian Nicholson
Animation by Hannah Whittaker
Funded by Portsmouth City Council, Artswork, Portsmouth Cultural Education Partners and Arts Council England

This Performance Is Unstable

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Experimental Online Performance (2021)

Online meetings bring a new digital chaos to our lives – bad connections, delayed audio, feedback loops and jittery conversations.

This Performance Is Unstable is a work for nine remote singers that both avoids and embraces these glitches, exploiting them to create a new way of collaborating musically over the internet. The experimental score uses technical problems as its chance element and tests the musical possibilities where precise timing is either less important or overcome altogether.

Watch and listen as a changing kaleidoscope of sound is produced, with features of excitement, suspense, resolution and surprise…

This was work was developed in partnership with Andy Millest, who is a music practitioner, musician and composer with over four decades of experience - he’s also my dad. This is our first official collaboration.

This piece was commissioned by Sparked Echo for the Electric Medway festival 2021.

PAST SHOWINGS

Electric Medway Festival
Aug 2021
Online

Cathedral of Community

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Community Project (2021)

The vibrancy and character of an area is created by its people, the community that dwells there. To celebrate a place is to celebrate its people. The Cathedral of Community is a colourful spectacle dedicated to these people. A building will be taken over, its windows filled with tissue-paper stained glass portraits of the people behind the businesses and organisations of the area. Visible by day but also, more excitingly, lit up at night to create a dazzling attraction. This project removes the visual barrier of physical walls to allow us a glimpse inside at the staff, teams and workers behind the scenes.

 
 

Chatham Intra Edition (May 2021)

FEATURING: Naked Products Co and Retrosential, Sun Pier House, Kalikas Armour fashion label, Sparked Echo, MESS ROOM, Ben Sad Art, Blue Dinosaur Animation, With Love and Lace, Dead Pigeon Pub, Lounge 44, Sniper308, Miss Ava's Millinery, Poco Loco, Studio Eleven Tattoo and Piercing, Hilary's Electrolysis, Jane Pitt, Unravel & Unwind CIC, Dockside Studio / Neville Mountford-Hoare Photographer, No. 64 Coffee and Brunch, Hulkes Lane Darkroom & Studio, Cafenetics, Jet Stream Tours, INTRA arts & Granite Gym.

The Intra Edition was part of the High Street Heritage Action Zone Cultural Programme Pilot, co-funded by Historic England and The National Lottery Heritage Fund, and supported by Arts Council England and Medway Council. Read about the other 5 commissioned projects here.

PAST SHOWINGS

Ebb & Flow Festival
95- 97 High Street, Chatham
21-23 May 2021

Part of the High Street Heritage Action Zone Cultural Programme Pilot, co-funded by Historic England and The National Lottery Heritage Fund, and supported by Arts Council England and Medway Council.

Gillingham High St Edition (Aug 2021)

FEATURING: St Mark's Church, Salvation Army, Buskitivity, Gillingham Eco-Hub, Street Angels, Mythologic Escape Room, Medway Fit, Park Run Boyce's Bakery, Taylor & Co Accountants, Buskers Tim & Ruth Parfitt, The Super Hot Chilli Company, Miss Grace Jewellers, Unravel & Unwind, Crops and Bobbers, Market Supervisor, Gillingham Library, Buxton Dance and Drama Studios, Bike Warehouse & New Look.

This edition was commissioned for the Gillingham POW! Arts Trail - in partnership with MESS ROOM and Mark Barnes. Along with other local artists, they have created a public gallery that will fill the high street with artworks themed on local legends, heroes and everything that makes Gillingham special. The artworks will be available to see from Saturday 28 August 2021 in and around Gillingham High Street. Read about all the projects here.

PAST SHOWINGS

Gillingham POW! Arts Trail
New Look, Gillingham High St
Aug - Oct 2021

Commissioned for the Gillingham POW Arts Trail by Medway Council in partnership with with Medway artists MESS ROOM and Mark Barnes

Parquet Picioare

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Installation (2019)

Parquet Picioare is a site-specific installation designed especially for St Margaret with St Columba Church, Leytonstone. Using the building’s architecture as a starting point, and inspired by the Romanian Orthodox community who also worship at the church, Parquet Picioare reflects the strong sense of fellowship and community fostered here.

Picioare is the Romanian word for ‘feet’ and the aim of this piece it to create a community ‘footprint’. The individually made wooden tiles feature the outlines of the feet of people from the wider church community. While each tile is different, their coordination within a larger pattern symbolises a unity which permits difference.

Commissioned by Art+Christianity
With special thanks to Sam Pearce, Andy Millest and Frank Whittaker

Periscope

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Interactive Installation (2019)

Periscope considers our sense of identity and self-image.  Do we view ourselves through the lens of the media, falling short of superficial unattainable standards, or do we see ourselves from the perspective of our Father in heaven - who made us, formed us and knows us better than we know ourselves?

The first section - displays a video montage of the media’s ideas of beauty and perfection. By standing in front of the screen (and the projector) you obstruct the image, creating a you-shaped shadow - you do not reflect this image of perfection, you are a blemish on this image.

You then continue to the second section - this screen initial looks blank, however when you stand in front of it it reveals a you-shaped image that contains animated references from the bible about how God, your father, views you. Due to your proximity to the screen only you can see and read these revealed messages about yourself. It is by coming close to the father that we can see ourselves through his eyes and understand our own identities.

PAST SHOWINGS

Unveiling Festival 
16th - 17th May 2019
The Engine Room

I’ll Never Let You Go (But I will, it’s inevitable, I can’t hold on forever, but I won’t stop trying)

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Durational Performance (2019)

Relationships are hard. Like all things worth having they take work.

In love we make extravagant declarations and promises to each other: ‘I’ll always be there for you’, ‘I’ll never hurt you’, ‘I’ll never let you down’. While our intentions are good, we are human and fallible and unable to ever truly fulfil these promises. So what should we do - Give up? Not declare such things? No, we acknowledge our fallibility and just keep trying.

The performers take it in turns to carry each other, holding on as long as they can. Once they have failed they swap over and start again. they continue this for 3 hours. It’s not elegant, it’s not strong but it is persistent - it’s love.

PAST PERFORMANCES

StrangeLove Festival
24th Mar 2019
Brewery Tap Project Space

Sky Above The Scene

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Immersive Installation (2019)

In a time of borders being strengthened and unions being separated, Sky Above The Scene aims to focus attention on and increase appreciation of what unites us - our coexistence under one, borderless sky. While this may be a seemingly obvious fact, it’s perhaps only when space and time are provided to meditate on this fact, that it has the chance to change how people actually perceive the world. Sky Above the Scene aims to celebrate diversity, calling into question our perceptions of other cultures and challenging the notion of them being far removed and ‘foreign’, while making us think about our own position in the world, and how we would like our own communities to be perceived.

Project Page

“A seemingly simple idea, executed so beautifully to create an extremely powerful experience.”

“The world would be a better place if more people come and saw this exhibition. A lovely celebration of our differences and similarities.”

“Thoughtful, surprising and giving us all breathing space, which we need!”

PAST SHOWINGS

The Engine Room
March 2019

Electric Medway Festival
August 2020

Puncture the Screen Festival
July 2022

Wailing Wall

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Interactive Installation (2017)


Commissioned for Unveiling Festival 2017

The title is taken from the Western Wall of the temple in Jerusalem, nicknamed the Wailing Wall due the practice of Jews to visit the site to pray, weep over the temple’s destruction and slip prayer notes into the cracks in the walls.

As Christians we believe the temple where God resides is not a physical building but the body of His people. This installation seeks to be a representation of this. As we enter our prayers into the Wailing Wall, we start to understand the unity of His family and that we are all held together as the new wailing wall crying out: the living stones of His temple.

Interact:

  1. Listen to the prayers through the wall’s weep holes

  2. Kneel down at the cornerstone and record a prayer by placing your hands on either side. This will be added to the library of prayers.

PAST SHOWINGS

Unveiling Festival 
21st - 23rd Jul 2017
Anthology Works Tottenham Hale

Natal (Idea in Gestation)

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Interactive Performance (2016)

An intimate performance exploring the conception, nurturing and development of a creative idea, from inspiration through to fruition, using the visual metaphor of a pregnancy.

Addressing issues and concerns that any creative mind will have encountered when undertaking a project; the initial pride of having the inspiration, decisions on development, potential of collaboration etc.  The performance takes the form of a dramatic monologue delivered directly to the surrounding  audience, inviting, if not forcing, them to partake on this journey and share responsibility with the performer. 

PAST PERFORMANCES

Theatre in the Pound
Monday 20th Nov 2017
The Cockpit Theatre, Gateforth Street, London NW8 8EH

ProperGanda
Friday 4th Nov 2016
The Others, 6 Manor Road, N16 5 London, United Kingdom

Guerrilla Zoo's Modern Panic VII: Panic Sermons 
Sunday 9th Oct 2016
Bethnal Green Working

Take; eat

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Interactive Installation (2016)

“Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me.”

— 1 Corinthians 11:24

An interactive installation / bread sculpture inviting people to reconnect with the ritual of communion and what the bread and wine signify. Allowing people to come and break off some of the bread from the sculpture to eat. The sacrifice, the sustenance is there for you, you just need to reach out and claim it. 

Working with wood and bread as materials was a new venture away from performance and the digital and an continuation of my exploration of the use of temporary artworks and materials. 

PAST SHOWINGS

Unveiling Festival 
18th - 20th Mar 2016
TMC Artist Studios,

Cables

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Durational Performance Installation (2016)

I fill a small space with cables, mounds and mounds of tangled cables, cables that work, are useful and very valuable - if they weren't all tangled together. In their current state they are obsolete and have been left to gather dust. I sort them out, I keep going until they are all done. On display to the public, they can see the show progression throughout the day.
It takes 8 hours. 

Some observations from during the performance:
09:45 - People on their way to work watch as I fill the window with cables. 
10:00 - More cables than I'd realised. Now that I'm in the door won't open, I'm more or less trapped. 
11:10 - It's quite therapeutic, following the cables as they weave in and out of each other. A massive puzzle. 
12:15 - 2 hours in and the hooks I was hanging untangled cables on has just fallen down. Now I'm sorting on top of the mess, doesn't feel or look like any progress. 
13:00 - I usually get really frustrated and impatient untangling cables, but I know I'm here for the long run so just taking it slow, taking my time and enjoying the task. 
13:10 - People on their lunch break come to see my progress and sympathise with me. 
14:45 - Everything here is so obsolete unplugged, unable to serve it's purpose, simply because it's tangled and no one has the time to untangle them. 
15:10 - Considering all the other potential uses for these cables, I could weave them together on a loom?
15:33 - My hands are really hurting, rope burn, dust, and a few sharp broken wires.  
16:30 - I'm starting to rush now, didn't think it would take this long. Doesn't seem to be getting much easier. 
17:10 - Rushing, hurts even more.
17:33 - All the people that passed on their way to work this morning starting to come by again, does it look like I've made any progress?

Cables donated by Relentless Number 5,  Central School of Speech and Drama and Colonia Forever

PAST PERFORMANCES

Artists' window take over as part of the 'Whose London is it Anyway?' Festival
Jan 2016
Camden People's Theatre

Wish List

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One On One Performance (2015)


Amongst the party crowd there is a Christmas elf, interacting with people and small groups; inviting them to share their wishes for this Christmas. These wishes can be material things, help in a relationship/situation, a dream job, world peace or anything. To submit these desires people are encouraged to draw something to represent their wish onto the elf's arms in permanent marker, with the choice of whether or not to explain the meaning of the drawing. The elf will collect the wishes throughout the evening and continue to think and pray over all of them as long as they remain visible on their arms.

PAST PERFORMANCES

TMC Christmas Party
28th Nov 2015
TMC Studios

In Situ

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One on One Performance (2012)

In this place, in my place, what position will you take?

In relation to the issue of suffering ‘why does it happen?’ can be unhelpful, more important is 'what am I going to do about it?' Exploring the ideas of suffering and empathy, in a safe and secure environment in which all choices are confidential, this is a task based one on one performance in which the audience cannot remain passive. 

‘A tour de force of durational performance art revealing a mature and exciting new talent’
— Gill Foster

PAST SHOWINGS

Tempting Failure Festival
Sat 8th Nov 2014
 The Island, Bristol