Queer River

Art, Walking and Wellbeing

In 2020, supported by the Arts Council England Emergency Fund, I spent some time researching the role of everyday artful practice in promoting wellbeing, through my Kitchen Sketchbook, Walking Pages and Walking Bundles.

My aim was to develop new ways of sharing my daily practice with others, via digital and printed materials, to widen awareness of the value of such artful practices for staying well, in the face of social and ecological change.

I have recently been commissioned to make similar videos for use with groups of young people by Wessex Museums, and pages for a digital resource for older people from Pound Arts, and will be starting work on a new project soon with Celebrating Age Wiltshire, exploring the role of art in engaging isolated older people with their local natural environment.

Climate Museum UK

In my role as a member of the Climate Museum UK team, I develop and deliver creative experiences for people, supporting them to learn about the climate and ecological crisis.

I am currently developing new interactive artworks which I can use with CMUK to engage members of the public in exploring their local environment.

The image used here was taken during my work for CMUK at the Among the Trees exhibition at The Hayward Gallery in 2020. You can see a post that I wrote about this work on the CMUK website and a series of posts that I wrote for CMUK as part of The Urban Tree Festival on Acts of Tree Kindness.

Landlinks Project

Landlinks is an international arts project coordinated by Groundworks and SIT Select.

Landlinks invited artists to walk at the same time in a range of locations, responding to a script of words and prompts, whilst documenting their journeys with the Viewranger and What 3 Words apps.

Artwork that has emerged out of these walks was to be shared at an exhibition in 2020. This has now been postponed, with new dates tbc. In the meantime, work in progress can be seen on the Groundworks website, together with a series of interviews. See my own 'in conversation' here.

People + Place

People + Place (PaP) is an artists' collective set up by the New Forest based contemporary arts organisation More Than Ponies with the support of A Space Arts, Southampton.

As a group of six artists based in/around Hampshire, we began in the first lockdown in 2020 by exploring the role of Mail Art  at a time of social distancing. As restrictions have permitted we extended our collaborations to include real life meet ups in and around the New Forest.

For a post on my involvement in the correspondence art element of this project, please take a look at my blog. For information on the other artists involved see the People + Place (Mail) page on the More Than Ponies website.