An Elastic Continuum Exhibition and Symposium
curated by Victoria Sharples and Rebecca Howard of NMRG

S1 Artspace 
June 2023


Arriving from the proposition of ‘skin’, An Elastic Continuum offers an interface with skinnings: surfaces, architectural structures, organisms, membranes and embalmings. The works on show present a plethora of intersectional readings that transect ontologies of animacy and the sensorial, biotechnical interventions (birth, growth, ailment, and death), human, animal and plant bodies, and spaces of trans-ition, whether -gender, - species or interior-exterior relations).

Included in the show were two of my recent works ‘grind to a halt’ and ‘visually stunning, durable, non-slip, weather-resistant, UV-resistant, low maintenance’ alongside work by Simon Carter, Grace Clifford, Craig Fisher, Helen Hamilton, Rebecca Howard, Victoria Sharples, Emily Speed, Rose Hedy Squires, Rachel Stanley, Lucy Vann, Henriette Von Muenchhausen & Nathan Walker.

In ‘visually stunning, durable, non-slip, weather-resistant, UV-resistant, low maintenance’ a slumped glass sheet sits on a pulp-formed cardboard platform with chunks of resin-bonded aggregate slotted into the segmented gaps. This aggregate was collected over many months from a tree lined street, with each tree filled at its base to contain soil, manage wetness, supress weeds, to only permit solitary growth in an allotted square meter. As the roots shift under the earth, the resin-bonded skin bulges and splits, with chunks of aggregate spat out. Three reconfigured chunks balance against a wall to form a refuge, a shelter, a nest.

‘grind to a halt’ is photographic image printed on acetate (mounted on ply) of a window of a homework centre on the New Cross Road, Southeast London. A layer of black dust coats the window.

At the symposium, I presented my paper 'A build up of moisture' alongside Ellie Barratt, Bethan Hughes, Victoria Lucas and Stephanie Rushton. 

The exhibition and symposium was funded by University of Derby’s Early-Career Researcher Development Fund. The title is used with kind permission from presenting artist Bethan Hughes. Photography by photo.csv