Very excited to be one of the artists working on the Woods to Where else project in Kings Wood with Stour Valley Creative Partnerships. This is a research and development project with a mini residency, working with Mavernie Cunningham, to explore the“ecological tension between nature and cultivation and to examine and question the identity of the woods as a purely natural and harmonious environment.”
Right up my street.
Eek, I’ve had a proposal for a paper accepted for a symposium at Coventry university in December. I’ll be presenting my film Encountering Place in the context of the symposium title Drawing Conversations 2: Body, Space, Object.
Slightly nervous now about writing the actual paper as I haven’t done anything academic for a while.
I am really pleased that the film I made during the residency and screened at the Festival will feature as part of the FiliArt programme of exhibitions, performances and screenings during the upcoming (Feminism in London) FiLia conference on 14-15 October 2017 at the Institute of Education in London.
Clare Smith's mixed English/Chinese heritage informs her perspective on issues of identity and categorisation. Her nomadic childhood and early adulthood have meant a somewhat ambivalent relationship to place, reinforced by the sense of ambiguity that comes from her mixed identity. Smith works with drawing, print media, collage and moving image to investigate this ambivalence, with references to craft, the importance of labour and the handmade. Through her choice of materials and approaches, she creates work which attempts to create a sense of unity, an interpretation of Homi Bhabha's "Third Space" - seen as a space in which different parts can come together to challenge dominant ideas of wholeness. Collaboration is part of Smith’s practice and she is also co-founder of Dover Arts Development (DAD) together with painter, Joanna Jones. This involves working with many different artists, curation, organisation, event management, creating networks across East Kent and influencing the public realm in Dover. Clare works from a studio in Dover. She has an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins and has exhibited nationally and internationally.
