This blog charts my residency in Potterside Woods in North Yorkshire. In the past few years my practice has become increasingly site-responsive. A city girl until my recent move, this residency will allow me space to explore my practice in my new rural context.
This blog will chart my residency at Potterside Woods in North Yorkshire. I grew up in London and, until recently, I have always lived in cities. Late autumn 2015 I made the move from Sheffield, in which I had lived and worked for 10 years, to a tiny village in the North York Moors surrounded by moorland and sheep.
This residency will enable me to explore who I am as an artist in this new context. I’m excited but also a little scared. My last two major projects have been site-responsive installations, with a strong performative and interactive element. They have also been city-based. I’m really interested in what might emerge from my residency in the middle of a nearly 19 acre woodland, almost in the middle of nowhere.
Primarily, (or initially, at least) the aim of this residency is to take stock of my practice – of where I’ve been the past few years, of how my previous work links up with what I’m creating now; to explore this transitional space; to see who I am as an artist in my new, rural context.
So it will very much be a site-responsive project. As I mentioned, my previous two projects have been interactive installation works. In each case, the viewers have been instrumental in the piece. I hope to develop a project during this residency that will, in some way, involve the local community (something which, arguably, is even more important in small, rural communities than in the city). However, it’s very early days so for now my brief is simply: explore, play, examine, let the work unfold…
