Category: Visible

The performance incorporates archival footage from 1971, documenting the installation of Barbara Hepworth’s Two Forms in a regional museum in northern England. As the footage is projected onto the wall of the performance space, I read a text aloud while simultaneously rolling, shuffling and lying down in the space, in a manner that partly echo the movements of the sculpture itself. The work challenges the use of archival images to canonise art history, while simultaneously undermining the ‘subjective authority’ of the voice-over by introducing gaps and hesitations into the spoken language.

Lisa is composed of iPhone recordings and ripped YouTube videos, layered with onscreen titles and voice-overs to explore questions of artistic agency. Shifting between the narrative of soap opera character Lisa Shaw, go-pro footage of wild animals, and reflections on my own experience of typing-induced numb fingers, the work considers the romantic idea of the artist’s mark.

Marbles is a series of short videos shown on smartphones and tablets, featuring close-up views of polished stone surfaces overlaid with changing text. The texts are drawn from, among other sources, a newspaper article describing an anti-fascist march, an essay on male painters by novelist Rachel Cusk and an advertising campaign for mascara. The work explores material value and power, tracing connections between the historical prestige of marble, the allure of screens, and the authority of (sub)titles in the moving image.

Made in the context of the Brexit referendum and the UK’s choice to leave the EU, this video considers objects that have been used to support the narrative of Britain as culturally and economically dominant, including the UK’s main exports (precious stones, machine parts & sports cars) as well as objects of culture (sculptures & paintings). The work is an attempt to explore how different aesthetics give credence to political values and ideologies.