ARTISTS TALKING

What is essential in both elements of my practice is the importance of networks – whether it's locating a willing camera-person, suggesting a supplier or providing technical assistance.

Within my work I might move between embroidery, intricate jigsaw cuts in plywood, or the filming of foreign trams. Recently I fulfilled a long-held ambition to learn Polish tongue-twisters whilst consuming a bottle of vodka. My coach – Ania Witowska – guided me through a difficult linguistic terrain as I struggled to find an 'authentic' voice. Previously I have been the subject of a month-long adoption by a curator and his partner – linking my cuckoo-like behaviour to artistic patronage. I do not find it easy to categorise my practice as such – these activities are usually viewed as video, slide or photographic documentation.

An ongoing concern in my work has been that of navigation – through social space and language, geographical space, virtual space, topographical space, private and political space. Essentially this has been manifested through 'the Navigator', a role which I periodically assume. The Navigator first appeared in my work in Haapsalu, Estonia (1997) and has reappeared since – most recently on a rooftop in Berlin and on top of a carpark in Manchester city centre. My latest body of work, forming the exhibition 'Ambassadress', aims to expand this desire to engage with a space and negotiate it in the particular terms the role demands.

The role of the Ambassadress extends that of the Navigator in that it brings together my interest in re/orientation and the notion of twinning locations. In this case the 'twins' are Angers in the Loire Valley and the borough of Wigan & Leigh in the north west of England. An economic incentive, this association intrigued me after discovering that each of the 'twins' hosts an ambassadress/ambassador from their partner location on an annual basis. This new work produced for the Turnpike Gallery looks at this reflective relationship between the 'twins' mediated through me, assuming the role of the Ambassadress, in both Angers and Greater Manchester.