TECTUM ARGENTI, 2022, 9 MINS, 16MM FILM: DIGITISED

Commissioned by Loose Screw, originally installed at The Art House Wakefield, UK, Nov-Dec 2022.

A moving meditation on reconnecting with the self in nature: shot, hand-processed and edited on 16mm film. Internal and external landscapes intertwine in an assemblage of fractured but interconnected poetic gestures, multiple exposures, textural images, and abstract marks made onto the surface of the film, evoking a difficult (but at times euphoric) journey of coming out and healing from the past.

Selected Screenings and Exhibition in 2023-2024: On Queerness and Ecology, London; Gravitational Lensing, Shapeshifters Cinema, Oakland CA; New York Filmmakers Coop, NYC; CROSSROADS, San Francisco; 25FPS, Zagreb, Croatia; Kinoskop, Belgrade, Serbia; Braziers International Film Festival, UK; Illumination, Centre Space Gallery, Bristol; Strangloscope, Itajai, Brazil; SeaChange Film Festival, Isle of Tiree, UK.

Since 2024, distributed by the New York Filmmakers Coop.

MEETING HALFWAY, 2022, 5 MINS, 16MM FILM: DIGITISED

Collaborative double channel 16mm film with Lucy Bergman shot on location in Warwick - the halfway point between the two filmmakers’ birthplaces. Shot on 16mm reversal film, and edited in-camera, this work plays with idea of meeting in the middle, and dabbling there for a while (Sound by Gatestudio.Eu/Andrea Leoni, Italy).

Screenings in 2023: Flatpack Festival, Birmingham; Braziers International Film Festival, Braziers Park (UK); SeaChange Film Festival, Isle of Tiree (UK)

UNTITLED (SE139159), 2023, 6 MINS, 16MM & 35MM FILM: DIGITISED

Awarded 3rd prize, SCAF Emerging Artist Award 2023

Lightbox work (analogue film collage) and artist’s animation (1,149 scanned and animated frames) created using cyanotypes and phytography, in collaboration with wild plants and grasses from the park near my home. Both techniques create unique, painterly images which move between figuration and abstraction. The soundtrack is formed of field recordings from the site where the plants were foraged.

Exhibition in 2023-2024: Scott Creative Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award 2023, 13 September 2023 - 5 January 2024, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield [group exhibition]; Scott Creative Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award 2023 1 July-13 August, the Art House, Thirsk [group exhibition]

DIANE (WRAPPED IN PLASTIC), 2011/2022, 4 MINS, SUPER 8 FILM: DIGITISED

Collaborative film made with Mark Byrne. A super 8 hauntology reimagining a series of one-way conversations with the permanently off-camera Diane, made on expired film (best before 1990), home-processed, wrapped in plastic and buried in the woods. A collaboration between ourselves, the source material, body of film and earth it was buried in, the collaged soundtrack was recorded directly onto the magnetic strip of the film.

Screenings in 2023-24: Analogica 14, Bologna, Italy; Light Matter Film Festival Touring Programme @ New York Filmmakers Co-op, New York | Museo Nacional del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador | Kino Palais, Buenos Aires | No Name Cinema, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Light Matter Film Festival, Alfred, NY (US) Film and Forage Symposium & Screening, London (UK)

LEEDS CREATIVE LABS X BRADFORD PRODUCING HUB (2024)

Collaborative R&D project with Evgenia Ilyinskaya, Volcanologist and Associate Professor at the Institute of Geophysics and Tectonics, University of Leeds

Our research explored the study of volcanic activity and effects on local populations, air pollution, local botany and the sharing of community knowledge through sustainable and alternative photographic processes.

We partnered on a collaborative research project using sustainable photographic processes, working with the volcanic landscape of the Caribbean island of Montserrat.

blue moon (2023)

3 mins, cyanotypes on recycled 16mm filmstock made with foraged wild plants, grasses and Northern sunlight.

A camera-less 16mm film inspired by the Blue Supermoon at Saltburn-by-the-Sea on 30 August 2023. Working in collaboration with foraged local grasses and wild plants, I contact printed the organic material directly onto the surface of recycled 16mm filmstrips coated with hand-made cyanotype chemistry.

Exhibition in 2024:

On Queerness + Ecology, London, 27-30 September [group exhibition]

‘Repetition: PC24, PHOTO-CANOPY, Burton on Trent, July [group exhibition]

Animating Hexham, Hexham, 9-11 February [group exhibition]

IN PRODUCTION: MARTIN THOMAS MEMORIAL ARTWORK, 2023-24

Commissioned by the University of Leeds.

An artist’s 16mm film celebrating the life, work and research of Dr Martin Thomas, an academic researcher who specialised in multimodal translation at the Centre for Translation Studies.

The artwork will be co-created with Martin’s friends, colleagues, staff and students at the University of Leeds through interviews, filmmaking dérives and creative workshops.

The final memorial artwork will be screened in December 2024 and stills from the film permanently displayed as part of the University of Leeds art collection.

RUSHES (WIP), 2023,16MM FILM: DIGITISED

Collaborative film made with Lucy Bergman, while resident at SeaChange Festival on the Isle of Tiree, Scotland.

We explore the idea of ‘rushes’: firstly as living subjects in the film, bending to the continuous, relentless winds coming in from the Atlantic Ocean, and secondly in relation to filmmaking practice: ‘rushes’ as a body of raw material that can be assembled into multiple, perhaps infinite iterations.

WILDERNESSFILM (WIP), 2023-24, 16MM FILM: DIGITISED

A cameraless film for three 16mm projectors produced in collaboration with foraged wild plants from an urban wilderness in Bradford- using direct contact printing techniques onto recycled 16mm film coated with hand-made cyanotype emulsion.

I’m working with field recordings from the site and optical sound from the film itself to create a live soundtrack for the performance.

IN PRE-PRODUCTION: IN SEARCH OF THE GIANT'S WIFE, 2023-24

Partially funded by Bradford Arts and Heritage Small Grants.

In Search of the Giant’s Wife: Herstories of Rombald’s Moor is a sculptural film collaboration with artist Eve Miller inspired by the iconic landscape, archaeology and mythology of Rombald’s Moor, a site of creative activity and expression since the Neolithic Age. We’re exploring casting in ceramic sculpture and film, responding to the archaeological artefacts and diverse ecosystems embedded in this unique landscape.

‘SET THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN: BOOBOO’S EXPLODING PLASTIC INEVITABLE’, 2023

Published by San Francisco Cinematheque

My artist’s text on the cult film Spectres of the Spectrum (1999) in Craig Baldwin: Avant to Live! eds Brett Kashmere and Steve Polta.

LIVING MURAL, 2017, PARTICIPATORY INSTALLATION WITH ANALOGUE PROJECTIONS

Commissioned by Bedford Creative Arts

Two-day participatory tactile cinema workshop and live performance installation at The Higgins, Bedford (collaboration with Maria Anastassiou). Participants of all ages worked in a tactile way with collage, shapes, patterns and unusual materials, creating slides and acetates to create a constantly changing assemblage in the gallery space.

UNRAVEL NYC @ WHITNEY MUSEUM of american art, 2016, ARTIST RESIDENCY + film

Commissioned by Whitney Museum of American Art for Dreamlands: Immersive cinema and art 1905-2016.

The film was hand made using tactile cameraless processes by 500+ people over an eight day residency. A collective audio-visual portrait of its creators, each frame of the film corresponds to one unit of the 18,000-square-foot Neil Bluhm Family Galleries where Dreamlands was installed. The soundtrack is a multilayered collage of interviews with participants, ambient sound and optical sound from the filmstrip itself.

Exhibition in 2016: Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art 1905-2016, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

UNRAVEL @ WHITNEY MUSEUM, NYC, 2016, ARTIST RESIDENCY

Commissioned by Whitney Museum of American Art for Dreamlands: Immersive cinema and art 1905-2016.

UNRAVEL: THE LONGEST HAND-PAINTED FILM IN BRITAIN, 2010-2013

Winner of the Royal College of Art Deutsche Bank Award for Art 2010.

This collaborative project with Chris Paul Daniels, Maria Anastassiou, Kelvin Brown and Mark Byrne created the longest hand-painted 16mm film in Britain, correlating in length (one frame per metre) to the 874 mile distance between John O Groats and Lands End. Through a UK-wide tour of open-access, cameraless 16mm filmmaking workshops with 3000+ participants, in 100+ galleries, museums, film festivals and community venues, Unravel brought tactile cinema to new audiences. The final film lasts 16 hours, and is accompanied by a collaged soundtrack of interviews with participants, ambient sound and optical sound from the filmstrip. Partners included: Turner Contemporary, Tate Britain, Firstsite, Colchester, BFI Southbank, Tate Britain, FACT, Flatpack/Midlands Art Centre, The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester

Exhibitions/Screenings in 2012: IKON Gallery, Birmingham; Firstsite, Colchester; 2011: Chisenhale Gallery, London; Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival; The Arnolfini, Bristol; Bradford Animation Festival, National Media Museum; CCA, Glasgow.

SCREEN KISS, 2007-2017, 12 MINS, 16MM FILM PERFORMANCE WITH COSMETICS

I apply lipstick and kiss a film loop as it runs through the projector. The lipstick imprints on the surface of the celluloid are transformed into flickering, increasingly ecstatic images onscreen – also creating abstract optical sound that is manipulated live using effects pedals. The film ends when the loop is too clogged with lipstick to run through the projector, and suddenly slips out of the gate.

Performances: 2017: On Residual Agencies, The Telfer Gallery/Edinburgh Art Festival; 2013: Misdirect Movies, The Royal Standard, Liverpool, 2011: Cinema Corporel, Granary Wharf, Leeds.

2023: featured in: Analog Cookbook #7: Analog Erotica.