Exhibition: Across the Tracks

Opening event: Friday 5 April, 6pm - 8pm
Saturday 6 April / Sunday 7 April, 11am - 3pm

We live in a society that’s always on the go, from grabbing a coffee between meetings or eating a ready meal whilst watching NETFLIX at home (other service providers are available). Much of this is done alone, leading to a rather solitary, sometimes lonely, existence. However, sitting down at a table and eating together is a great way to connect with your fellow human beings. Sharing a meal with a stranger provides an excuse to talk, to catch up, to share ideas, to make new friends, and one of the few times in the day when people are happy to take time out from their busy schedules.

Meeting people from different parts of the community, whilst eating in a social setting, has the potential to help different groups find common ground. In this setting, eating can be as much about conversation as it is nourishment, providing the opportunity to develop new friendships and learn new perspectives.

The BA (Hons) Stage One Architecture and Interior Architecture and Design students from The Canterbury School of Architecture, based at the University for the Creative Arts, will present aspects of their work in an upcoming exhibition titled Across the Tracks. This work has been developed in response to the complex social and economic challenges associated with cultural-led regeneration in and around the Kent coast. Portraits of strangers who may just be your neighbours, visitors, friends, family and loved ones. Portraits of streets that form districts, communities, neighbourhoods and townships. Featuring food created by Folkestone based Cherry Truluck (of Custom Folkestone), this is an exhibition of work that explores the residents and communities of Folkestone and the town that they live in.

Urban Room Folkestone Workshop Programme:

With a focus on developing a communal understanding of the urban environment and how that is developed, the Urban Room Folkestone have commissioned me to programme a series of workshops that can help local communities engage with that on a more critical level. Through this series, participants will get to engage and explore present-day Folkestone and its future, with a series of different exercises involving mapping, making and walking.

From June 13th to July 13th 2018, I was the artist in residence for the Prague Biennale organisation, as part of the Magic Carpets programme. Magic Carpets is a 4 year Creative Europe platform which involves 13 cultural organisations from the EU and other candidate countries, providing a platform for emerging artists to collect local stories and carry them across Europe. Each year, each organisation will host an artist for a one-month residency for them to create a body of work in response to this cultural exchange. In it's inaugural year, I was put forward by the Folkestone Fringe, UK, and selected for participation by the Prague Biennale in the Czech Republic. During this residency, I created a body of work called Urban Archive, and through that, explored the relationship between tourism and the local residents in Central Prague.

Now that Magic Carpets is in its second year, Folkestone Fringe have invited me to work with their incoming artists and continue my Urban Archive project, this time focusing on the different communities resident in Folkestone. During this residency, I will explore the different layers of the towns urban fabric and try to understand the relationships between that and the towns people. This residency will be broken down into two phases; an initial research period from April 1st to April 14th, followed by a development and production phase from June 1st to June 30th.