When working on a project, what’s your creative process?
I find I work best without the pressure of being at ‘step one’, so for me it is more intuitive and cyclical. I often have a series of images in my mind that are unrelated but for one reason or another become recurring thoughts. From there I pick one and think about what it could mean, why it might be showing up in my mind, and how it could form or connect with a body of work.
Oftentimes these images lead me to reimagine disembodied societal frameworks or capitalist rituals from a perspective that centres embodiment. This part of my practice doesn’t really offer any visual output, instead allows time for thinking and writing, but (hopefully) leads me to a structured methodology or generative exercise.
My practice generally is a space for me to explore avenues for protest in my body and in everyday life. Through my research periods I hope to understand existing conventions so I can establish parameters for my work that conflict with these conventions. I see my art as navigating the tense relationship between social expectations and capitalist striving and queer, recovery-centred embodiment.
Please share the story behind a piece of work.
My piece Notations of Future-Fixation is part of a broader body of work looking to the orchestra as a mirror of social striving, discipline, and hierarchy. It considers exclusion and the performative mask required to maintain that exclusion. It comprises a music composition that is to be guided by bodily rhythms instead of by a conductor and uses conventions of orchestral music as opportunities for organised embodiment.
At the moment the project exists mostly in my imagination (and midi file and photographic series) but I hope to produce it live at some point.
Any unusual (if there is such a thing) inspiration?
It is cliché but I find imagery inspiration in dreams, and in a recent work They Moved in Three Second Phrases, Glowing, I looked at ECG readings.
What is important to you when you’re in the process of doing work? What can be missing in that process?
I think collective care is so important and is necessary. Sharing creative space with loved ones is an honour and offers mutual inspiration but also reassurance. Sometimes it is the faith of those who witness your ideas and your progress that gives you the motivation you need to keep creating. I think this is something I have learnt from my third sector work and community organising network.
What would you like to add in your future projects? What’s upcoming?
I have been building my social practice experience for a few years now. This has so far bridged my research and third sector work, but I feel hopeful about integrating this more into my creative practice, collaborating more directly with local community.
I am also working on an independent sound and video work exploring the moralisation and rewards of sameness in childhood.
Please keep an eye out on my Instagram for updates on my practice !