ARTISTS TALKING

My work considers place and audience, private thoughts and public moments. My approach to site is through investigation and research: what makes a place specific, memorable? I am interested in the importance of awkward questions, the dissection of the given brief. Consequently each work is distinct and exposes the user to experiences that may be strangely familiar.

The first of two Norwich-based projects I have recently completed, Travel Narratives, was a temporary installation at Norwich Station. The second, Sanitary Ware, is a permanent element of the refurbished Norwich Castle Museum ([a-n] MAGAZINE February 2001). I am now talking with Public Arts Leicester about involving the National Space Centre with Bus Stop to Mars, a project that developed from work at Norwich Station. The Kings Fund Enhancing the Environment scheme is funding a commission for a new floor to the 100-metre-long main corridor at Northwick Park Hospital (Middlesex). The design involves working with hospital staff – porters, nurses, hairdressers, travel agents and cleaners – and incorporates their daily journeys and personalities. I calculated that Joyce, the Domestic Services Organiser, has cleaned the floor 76,000 times in her seventeen years of service: a record of this is to be included in the new floor.

There is a constantly negotiated relationship between commissions/studio practice and teaching: experience is drawn on in studio teaching and in professional practice courses: however, research is supported. Chelsea included Travel Narratives in its first exhibition 'Showcase 1' at its new premises at Millbank, and contributed to the catalogue's publication.

Collaborations with teaching colleagues can be explored: Julia Dwyer, Andreas Petrou and myself were shortlisted in a competition for Streatham, South London, where we proposed developing a growing, time-based work with input from Trees for London, Photofusion and local people. Current shortlistings include Poole Arts Centre and a new building for the Open University at Milton Keynes.

UPDATE 2006
Since January 2002 I have continued to work in the public domain, broken my right arm, survived the closure of the Public Art courses at Chelsea and (have just) finished making a website.

Following the Northwick Park Hospital floor commission, I have continued to work on hospital projects. Working with two Sexual Health and Breast Imaging departments. ‘Mind the Gap,’ a research project looks at issues related to the hospital gown. ‘Outside In’ looked at the issues of navigation around two hospitals sites.

The ‘Digitate’ series at Enfield , included ‘Door Ghost’ at Forty Hall was exhibited in the ‘Haunt’ exhibition at Sherbourne House in 2004.

Commissions abroad have taken me to Lille, installing ‘Weather benches’ in the SE Asian Mosaic garden.

Last year aka: art-cooking-art trolley was exhibited in ‘Performance Furniture’ at CCAD. The work expressed overlaps between social space and creative space – the artist in the kitchen.
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