On Longing  (2009/10) Ongoing
 
 
  A series of pin-hole photographs are being created through the use of my ‘egg camera’ which nestles inside the palms of my hands whilst i sit on the edge of the canal bank for the 15 minute duration of the exposure time. This process is meditative. I sit silently and go through an order of simple actions during this process. The images contain my experience of being in this place of otherness. Machine I, The Middle of Nowhere, Exposure   I often perform and make images through using my body as a camera joining together interior and exterior spaces, through using the orifice of my mouth as the camera body, to clasping my hands together to form an aperture and using a ‘Body Necklace’ which contains apertures for the lips and hands. Underlying this work is the ritual of creating with my own body. The marks of my bodily processes are inscribed on to the image in the form of fingerprints, teeth marks and particles of saliva containing my historical traces of being. This work reveals the body as matter and process and questions the notion of the body as a container for the self. This work is not pre-determined it evolves from life experiences (what I see and do). For example ‘Machine I’ began when I transformed a room in my home into a camera obscura. There was something fascinating about being in this space, I was inside a camera viewing the world upside down and inside out. I had the desire to become this space to be it. The work is process led and the process becomes a performance, which I capture on motion film, which I consider to be just as important as the resulting images. The video work becomes an installation which takes into account the relationship between the body and the architectural spaces used. The Middle of Nowhere Video Exposure Images of Installation Body Photographs made with the mouth and clasped hands      Phone Chamber (2009)  ‘Phone Chamber’ was part of ‘2.5 Hours of Oxygen’ curated by Anne Forgan. Anne gave six artists the opportunity to engage with Birmingham City Centre’s last few remaining K6 red phone boxes. For ‘Phone Chamber’ the phone box was decked out with light tight purple drapes transforming it into a camera obscura. People were invited to enter the camera obscura and view the world in a different way. Visit BBC Birmingham review 2009 to read about the other artists work and more about this project. The Visitor (2009/10)   A series of photographic works developed during 2009/10 whilst carrying out a residency at ‘Himley House’ in Shropshire. This work investigates the in-between, the spaces between the body and the physical world, a space which i physically explore and interrogate. The works are presented as a series of narratives that have their own story, whilst allowing the viewer to interpret their own scenario around the work. The Blindings II (2008)   I was drawn to a small intimate space near the lake at the West Park in Wolverhampton.  Myself and five ‘attendants’ invited people to be guided on a silent journey around this space whilst they wore spectacles covered with the skin of milk.  A weighing scale nestled within the palms of the attendant’s hands, held the spectacles. This was designed as an offering and given to the willing invited participant.  As their vision would be impaired through wearing the spectacles, we were asking for their trust. The nature of their pending impartial sight was designed to encourage their sense of touch.  The position sensation and movement of their bodies and limbs as they walked around would affect their balance and hopefully encourage their sense of heightened touch.  Each attendant with the guest participant, silently guided them around the designated pathway.   The Blindings Video Looking Glasses (2007)  ‘Looking Glasses’ was part of ‘Testing the Waters’ a two week residency and exhibition by six members from ‘Laundry’ shown at Galleri 54, in Gothenburg, Sweden. Arriving one week before the exhibition we created work of an immediate and site specific nature. Questioning and investigating we responded to the city. You can read more about Laundry and this project on www.laundryline.co.uk Scene by mouth (2006)  A video installation, which depicts video performance where it is as if the eyes vision has been given to the mouth. Scene by mouth was made in response to a derelict building on the corner of Alcester Street and Green Street in Digbeth, Birmingham where a cctv camera was held in place inside the mouth to capture images of the building. I had the desire to soak up the experience of the texture of surfaces and breath in the scents emanating from the building. The work attempts to augment vision in order to enlarge the definition of what seeing entails. Inner Architecture (2006)  Part of ‘Spaces & Places’ a project with ‘Behind Closed Doors’ where I worked in collaboration with Sandra Hall. Through inviting local people to smell a certain scent and share their memories which the scent evoked culminated in an interactive performance/installation. Underpinning the work was the idea that we all possess an ‘inner time’ filled with places, perfumes and sounds which are buried in our subconscious mind. These past experiences which are always connected to a space or a place, can never be repeated and are lost to us, but the sensations and flavours experienced are not. The work explores how an unexpected scent can have the effect of transporting us to a different time and place and attempts to capture the essence of this experience. www.behindcloseddoors.org.uk The Blindings (2006)  A performance consisting of seven ‘attendants’ who encouraged people to wear strangers spectacles covered with the skin of milk whilst being guided on a silent journey around the architectural spaces of the Custard Factory, in Birmingham. This work investigates the dominance of sight and the language of opposites in Western culture, which seems to lead to a sense of detachment from the world and an increasing dis-located society of individuals Hotel Destination (2003)    A series of photographic works developed over a period of three months for a residency at The Queen Victoria Hotel, Wolverhampton I was fascinated by thoughts of the shifting population who visit the hotel very intermittently. Within the work there is a sense that we are to forever walk these corridors, losing our way and ending up again and again seeing the same things. But they are never the same as the objects are in a different light at a different time or have been moved slightly by the chambermaids. Playing in-between the conscious and unconscious the audience can play out their own lives through the doors of Hotel Destination and never arrive in the same place at the same time twice.The%20middle%20of%20nowhere.htmlVideo.htmlBlank%203.htmlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/articles/2009/03/19/red_phone_box_art_feature.shtmlThe%20Blindings%20II%20video.htmlhttp://www.laundryline.co.ukhttp://www.behindcloseddoors.org.ukhttp://livepage.apple.com/shapeimage_3_link_0shapeimage_3_link_1shapeimage_3_link_2shapeimage_3_link_3shapeimage_3_link_4shapeimage_3_link_5shapeimage_3_link_6shapeimage_3_link_7shapeimage_3_link_8shapeimage_3_link_9
 
 
 
 
‘Embodied Perspectives 2010
 
 
 
 
Body Photographs
A body of work that continues and extends my interest in the relationship between the body and the physical world along with an exploration into what it means to inhabit our bodies. In this work I become a camera through using the orifice of the mouth as the camera body and by utilizing a camera dress where photo-sensitive paper is attached to the surface of my body.  A ‘’Body necklace’’ acts as an aperture for the lips and dress.  Working in this way enables me to combine inner and outer landscapes where I become one with the work rather than being separated.  When we use a conventional camera the camera separates us from the subject.  Through becoming the camera I have removed this separation and in turn blurred the boundaries between self and other.  By other I mean anything that is exterior to us rivers, mountains, people, dwellings etc.  I document this process using a large pinhole camera where I become one with the long two hour exposure times.  This links with my interest in meditation because during the long exposure times the body becomes empty and I seem to enter a space where there is only time,but even this I am unsure of, and I have a profound desire to keep returning to this space.