Online Collaborative Residency digital showcase 2022
Take a look at the final pieces from the 12 artists who took part in our latest Online Collaborative Residency. The selected participants worked remotely in pairs over a period of 12 weeks to develop their projects through mentoring, advice and dedicated peer-to-peer sessions.
View the outcomes of their collaborations by clicking on the links below:
Catherine Ross and Lu Reid > view their work here
Through multi-media experimentation, Lu Reid and Catherine Ross aim to delve into the intricacies of liminal spaces in both a visual and sound environment. Combining thought-invoking sound walks via Catherine and a penchant for sonic experimentation via Lu, the two have worked together to create an audial experience placing you directly into a transitory liminal space with visual accompaniment.
Catherine Ross (@liminalstates) is currently pursuing a PhD in Fine Art at Oxford Brookes University, focusing on transformative thresholds and marginalisation. She aims to capture the ambiguity of transitional states through photography and binaural recording, something she has brought forward into this collaborative residency.
Lu Reid (@lu20202020202), commonly known under the moniker lu202, is a sound artist who specialises in combining experimental, sample based experiences within the structure of contemporary music. With a wide range of influences and theoretical depth, he will build upon Catherine’s sound walks to present an insulated transitional world through loosely structured, sample based, otherworldly compositions. Together they will combine their individual interests to immerse you in a liminal space, exploring the connection it has to your emotions and the power that uncertainty holds.
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Katie Schreiber and Melisa Novotna > view their work here
Melisa Novotna (she/her @novotnamelisa_) and Katie Schreiber (she/her @keernas) form an artist duo, drawing on their backgrounds in Fine Art and Fashion they explore themes of the gaze, internal identity and masquerade.
They use materials from drag culture including makeup and costume as mediums to express their individual identities and assert themselves as the subject, capturing their image through photography. Alongside this they use post production techniques; cropping and filters, manipulating each other’s images and taking on the role of editor. This alternating process allows them to explore the power dynamic between the subject and the gaze and ask questions about how much our individual identities can permeate through external filters.
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Nelly D and Woo Jin Joo > view their work here
In this residency, the pair explores roles of the artist in communicating the environmental emergency and injustice in today’s society by research and reflection through shared journal entries. This will be amplified and explored further through their journey in creating an exemplary educational pack focusing on the topic of ‘Animals as Immigrants’. The pair will create an educational pack out of domestic waste that could be replicated by teachers and parents, together with children, to learn about animals affected by climate change. The educational pack will involve simple making and crafting instructions, as well as encouraging children to find and fill in information about the animals. Through this exploration, the pair seeks to investigate further the effectiveness of craft and hands-on learning in addressing the climate emergency with children, as well as providing teachers and parents with educational material that is accessible and adaptable.
Neli Demireva (@nellyddraws) is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Essex. Her research focuses on vulnerable local communities, migration, inter-ethnic ties, social cohesion, ethnic penalties and multiculturalism. In her artistic practice, she focuses on political caricatures and has also written and illustrated two books for her niece Michaela (4yrs) trying to discuss environmental issues and inequality.
Woo Jin (@woojinstudio) is a mixed media artist with a speciality in textiles and embroidery art. Her practice focuses on exploring our perception of material value and the relationship we build with the object world around us, and how this has transformed with the advent of consumerism.
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Jane Ostler and Peter Porteous-Butler > view their work here
Jane Ostler (@dittledinglingdin) and Peter Porteous-Butler (@peterporteousbutler) are visual artists based in North Essex, working with hand creation methods and digitally. Both work day jobs in related fields to pay the bills. Upon commencing this residency, they were both very open to where it might, or might not, lead them. They considered ideas around the work-life balance and finding Time, with a capital ‘T’.
The separation of their lives into different sections, and the dissolve through from one area to another, was a hot topic of discussion. They found that they shared the wish to create thoughtful images that aimed to connect with people and express something funny or tell a story of life, humanity and nature.
Peter works predominantly in inks and oil paints, but for this project he used a mash up of everything plus digital enhancement. While Jane starts with drawing, using a pencil or paintbrush before making her next move.
The two viewed undertaking the residency as an opportunity to reflect upon Time. Can you make Time? How do you share out precious Time and how can you use this universal trope as a means to connect with your collaborator? They found that they had a shared interests in family research and the necessary role of the carer who is also an artist. Together they rediscovered why they chose to make art.
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Sophia Ede and Sally Maddams > view their work here
Sophia Ede (@sophiaedestudio) and Sally Maddams (@the_walking_artist) are both multi-media artists. Sophia explores documentation and the production of indexical signs through darkroom processes and camera building. Sally uses photography as a starting point for her work, as well as having a particular interest in different darkroom approaches. Sophia also considers what we call a camera by building the unexpected and found object pinhole cameras that produce some of her artwork. To her, the cameras she produces are as much about the work as they are the images they capture. Sally has a particular interest in the textures and weathered and worn surfaces which she has encountered on her journeys.
This collaboration allows for a great deal of experimentation and to allow the landscape to take over and see where the work progresses. Using pinhole cameras as a starting point, Sophia and Sally plan to document the changing seasons through the next few months, both urban and rural, and create outcomes which are connected through the same theme.
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Ben Green and Rachel Jordan > view their work here
Discovering that landscape was a shared interest, we took this as our starting point. Moreover, our mutual desire to avoid portraying landscape in romanticised and idealised ways has led us to exploring methods of representing it differently.
Our approach involves exchanging work and then allowing each other the room to add, manipulate and subtract as a fluid, progressive process. A photo could be digitally altered, printed via inkjet onto paper and then drawn over, or colour elements of a painting could be digitally isolated and transformed into a fractal pattern. We are exploring a range of mediums and concepts such as the patterns and structures that occur in nature as well as the light and colours seen in the Essex landscape. Essentially we are embracing an open-ended way of working and are excited about the endless possibilities of layering.
As a result of our dialogues about painting and photography, we ourselves are experiencing changes in perspective. Our resulting works may then also offer viewers a different perspective on the natural landscape so that it is re-presented.
Rachel Jordan (@racheljordanart) creates abstract drawings and paintings that utilise repeating patterns of circles and grids to suggest cellular structures, either man-made or natural.
Ben Green (@masta_green) is an interdisciplinary artist communicating primarily through analogue photographic processes. His work explores philosophical and psychological themes.