AirSpace Gallery Residency - Week 2

Having been in the studios for nearly a fortnight, after multiple trips to and from my chaotic temporary home studio, and after writing numerous shopping lists for things I'd inevitably forgotten or lost completely, I feel like my space is finally all set up. It's great to see work happening in, activating and evolving all our spaces (if you didn't read last week's blog post there's three of us) and all of it so different! The momentum of making is chugging along nicely and I'm starting to feel less like I don't know what I'm doing - not that that ever goes away totally... 

A meeting with Anna Francis (another AirSpace artist and someone I'm lucky to be familiar with from modules at Staffs Uni) helped begin to cement the context of my work and my interests moving forward, and gave me confidence and motivation to get it all moving. It opened up some interesting discussions about making work about women's bodies that is inclusive and accessible, we discussed ideas on how to prepare and engage the audience for performance work of that nature, and thoughts about how I can empower others through conversations and work about the body.

We also discussed potential mentors as mentoring is a part of the AirSpace residency, I had considered contacting a couple of artists I respect and admire but also knew I would benefit from conversations with artists in the studio such as Anna. Anna encouraged me to look further afield as artists within the studio community were already available for support during our time here. So I know I have some decisions to make about who to contact, how and why exactly so I can explain that to them. I know I flourish when I have peer support, mentor support and even just organic conversations with not only other artists but people in general. I think I do a lot of my processing through discussion, and support from others helps me not to get distracted or go on tangents which is pretty standard for me in day to day life but something I'd like to avoid in my time here.

With the physical part of practice I'm still developing, testing and playing with ideas but hopefully will have more to say in future blog posts - for now here are some pictures from week two...