Following March’s Rural Idyll 2 residency the resulting exhibition takes place every weekend throughout June 2011 between 11-5 at: Little Dodnash Farm, Bergholt Rd, Bentley, Suffolk IP9 2DQ.

Following the weeks residency I created two groups of work to be shown at the farm throughout June:

‘WOOD WORKINGS’
A constant theme of my work is the human interaction with landscape.  Whilst walking the woodlands that surround Little Dodnash Farm I became increasingly in awe of the trees, and fascinated by the process through which they are managed.  ‘Wood Workings’ documents the human relationship with the woodlands, and ultimately reflects on how; through domestic occupation and husbandry we leave a transitory mark on this environment.

See Gallery – Wood Workings for images from the collection.

’5 WORDS – SHADOWS ON A RURAL IDYLL’

Responding to the question – ‘give me 5 words that describe your feelings about living in a Rural Idyll’, the owner of Little Dodnash farm replied:

Solitude, Panic, Pleasure, Hardwork and Comfort.

’5 Words – shadows on a rural idyll’ uses these words as inspiration for a series of shadow based photo-ascetates constructed and photographed   at the farm during the residency in March. Through the use of Real-time graphical programming the photographs have subsequently been transformed into five animations (one for each word) and shown as a site-specific installation in the farms wood cutting yard.

It should be noted that although the inspiration for the piece sprang from the owner’s feelings about living in a rural idyll, its creation and ultimate presentation are based on my own responses to spending time at Little Dodnash Farm.  My main aim was to produce a piece that creates unity and provides equal weight to all five words, so giving us an insight into reality behind living in a Rural Idyll.

Having been involved in organising the South Bank Arts Trail for five years, I have been looking for a ways to develop new community arts based events.  The big difference being that I’d like to retain more creative control, be funded to do it and be able to pay artists to be involved. Jess Wright was in a similar situation, having run the South Bristol Business Awards for two years she was looking for a new challenge.  We share the same aims but come from different backgrounds:art and business. Seven months ago Jess and I started working on a new project called illuminate. Illuminate aims to produce arts-based events that promote and reflect both the creativity and rich history of South Bristol. Key elements of illuminate projects will be the use of disused properties to show art/moving image work, to reflect the community and history they are set in and to involve key creative organisations in the city of Bristol.

illuminates long-term aim is to produce a festive Christmas event that would transform multiple disused shops on North/East St by using projected films/light/artists installations. We will be piloting the illuminate concept at the end of March with Spring Forward, an event partnered with the Knowle West Media Centre and Picture This:

The weekend of March 27 to 29 will see two empty shops – numbers 26 and 28 in Bedminster’s North Street  – playing host to illuminate’s first event ‘Spring Forward’. Number 26 will feature a series of projected films made by Bristol based artists alongside an exhibition in the empty property (no.28) next door. The exhibition celebrates the past and present of Bedminster’s retail history.

For more information see the illuminate web site

Bristol stories is a collaboration between the Watershed and Bristol Museums to develop digital content for the new Museum of Bristol, due to open in 2009. Bristol Stories is based on the blueprint devised by Joe Lambert at the Centre for Digital Storytelling in California. The process enables people to ‘use digital media to tell meaningful stories from their life’.

I recently took part in a four day course to learn how to create stories based around the theme of travel, and enable the participants to facilitate Digital Storytelling workshops themselves (something I hope to do). My film ‘space boy’ uses photographs from my childhood, some sounds and images (copyright free) and my own recorded narrative.

The image above (yes, it’s me) is from the film which can be seen here: Space Boy