Draw Hope

in

Community Project (2023)

Draw Hope is an inspiring collaborative art project that invites participants with lived experience of self-harm or suicide* to create unique, personalised tree mural using their footprints and handprints. Through various creative mediums, including drawing, painting, collage and text, individuals can document their past experiences and future aspirations. The project aims to promote creativity and self-expression, and welcomes participation from all, including remote contributors who can submit their work anonymously.

The Draw Hope project is part of the Kent County Council’s Hope Community Arts Fund, which has supported over 15 different arts projects in the past five years. These projects have shown the positive impact that the arts can have, boosting confidence and providing a safe form of expression for participants.

Completed tree artworks were exhibited at the Turner Contemporary alongside works from other Hope Community Fund projects before embarking on a tour around Kent. This showcase coincides with the Baton of Hope journey, which aims to be the largest suicide awareness and prevention initiative in the UK, fostering necessary conversations and prompting appropriate actions.

Through a series of workshops, participants were guided through the creation of their own personalised tree using their own footprints and handprints and exploring a diverse range of creative techniques and mediums. Footprints form the trunk of their trees, while the branches and leaves take shape through the outlines of their outstretched arms and hands. Each footprint depicts a significant milestone in their lives, symbolising the steps that have brought them to where they stand today. Additionally, the handprints showcase their hopes and dreams for the future.

This project has served as a profound journey of self-reflection, empowering individuals to contemplate their past experiences and the limitless possibilities that lie ahead. Our stories are ongoing, and we continue to grow, with boundless potential awaiting us. Every tree created becomes part of a collective forest, together, they serve as a poignant reminder of the inner journey that each and every one of us embarks upon.

Read Article - A Show of Hope for Kent and Medway
Read Article - The most powerful antidote to despair is hope

This project is a grantee of the ‘Hope’ Community Arts Fund from the Kent & Medway Suicide Prevention Programme.

The HOPE Community Arts Fund has been selected as a winner of the Kent Mental Wellbeing Awards for 2023. More than 220 nominations were received this year from across Kent, Medway, Bexley and Bromley and the judging panel chose this project as one of the 30 winners.

PAST EXHIBITIONS

Launch Event
Turner Contemporary, Margate
Tues 18th Jul 2023

Fremlin Walk, Unit 10, Maidstone
24th – 28th Jul 2023

Chatham Library and community Hub
31st Jul – 4th Aug 2023

Trinity Theatre, Royal Tunbridge Wells
7th –11th Aug 2023

Labour of Love Lost

in

Stained Glass (2023)

A stained glass self portrait of the artist enduring a miscarriage. The piece links with and is a continuation of performance piece Natal (Idea in Gestation). This stained glass piece considers the physical endurance and breaking undertaken in the final push of creation. Again using the visual imagery of childbirth, but can refer to all creativity - the anguish and sacrifice experienced in bringing something into being or sometimes failing to.

PAST SHOWINGS

Medway Open Studios
MESS ROOM, Sun Pier House
July 2023

Rerooting

in , ,

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

in ,

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

in , ,

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

in ,

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

in ,

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

in , , ,

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)

in

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

in , , ,

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

in , ,

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)

in ,

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

in ,

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,