Covespace 2024

Dimensions variable. Jesmonite, resin, found objects, sand, photograph transfers, metal, video

Site - Sententia, The BUG Summer Residency Exhibition, Bournemouth

Following my graduation from Fine Art at Arts University Bournemouth this year, I was selected for a Summer Residency run by the SU, a wonderful opportunity to continue my artistic practice and delve deeper into my explorations of sacred sites in Dorset. Expanding from my fmp work on Hengistbury Head, I looked into ancient, ecological and personal histories of the coast line from Hengistbury Head to Studland Bay, focusing on the water and cove.

My installation covespace blends research and memories to commemorate the natural lands and formative experiences throughout my time living in Bournemouth since 2018. As I have prepared to leave Dorset over this summer, I have reflected on end-of-cycle rituals, transition periods and the Death tarot card, considering this project as a requiem. I’m interested in sites around Bournemouth that have forgotten or hidden histories, and how to study site while subverting empirical standards. My explorations reject sterility, objectivity and modern ideas of truth, in favour of my natural romantic and spiritual biases in human lived experience.

I was also influenced by ideas on verticality - how as frontal-viewing, vertical beings, we can only take in a view from the horizon down to the foreground. I’m interested in how our subtle, human body-based perspectives may influence the way we construct spaces, particularly devotional shrines and altars. I find that verticality similarity dictates the preferred practice structure in academic and research sectors, intriguing my inclination to behaviours which merge diametric spheres, constantly in pursuit of locating the middle path.