I produce installations and objects that draw out our relationship to exterior spaces and structures from the urban to the Edgelands. The materiality corresponds to these areas from a neon in a city, abandoned climbing frames in a fringe park, to salvaged materials from an abandoned Mill, each holding a historical and local significance. These projects offer a use value, with how the works are occupied, determined or engaged with. The operative element plays out durationally, whether that’s changing policy on how a local council regenerate play spaces or how a city grants permission for a touring public sculpture.
I’M STAYING (2014 to 2021) was a large-scale text-based neon sculpture which travelled around the city of Bristol, moving quarterly via democratic vote for 2 and a half years. The locations were determined by the Bristol public, which informed meaning, therefore addressing the piece as both a statement of provocation and affirmation.
MORNING (2014 to 2018) attempted to identify the correlation between a series of architectural space-race themed climbing frames, designed in the 1970s, situated in my birthtown, with the area’s inclusion in the Basildon New Town experiment, and their simultaneous periods of change. After years of lobbying, the frames were painted, enabling them to glow in the dark at night.
PLOT (2018 to present) initially explored the rise and fall of the Plotlanders, a back the land, self-build, DIY community whom were displaced due to the area being designated as a new town in 1946 and the policies that followed. Over the last 2 years I have been self-building cabins on land which has either been abandoned, disused, or land banked. What does it mean to do this today, when the policies which made the Plotlanders illegal are still upheld?