Wish You Were Here
Legacy book published in April 2023
Alien Nation - I-team#1
Between October 2019 and June 2019 I am taking part in I-Team, a transnational learning programme for socio-cultural practitioners curated by Relais Culture Europe based in Paris.
Alien Nation - Apologies
All around Exchange Place studios there are posters with a promise and an apology surrounding an artist’s impression of how this area will soon be transformed. The project has a name: From Grey to Green. It might be one of the last regeneration projects supported by the European Regional Development Fund. Every time I see it the melody from ‘Jerusalem’ comes into my head
Alien Nation - white girl black girl
Still, artists are also citizens. It would be dishonest to suggest that our art were entirely disconnected from our lives as members of a community …. Our art is shaped by where we come from.
Alien Nation - Iqbal MBE
Diagonally across from the house I live, there is the semi-detached terraced house belonging to the Iqbal family. Mr Iqbal is in his 80s and moved to the UK in his late teens or early twenties He does'n’t know his actual date of birth.
Alien Nation
Non-native:
An introduced species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there by human activity, either deliberate or accidental. Non-native species can have various effects on the local ecosystem.
At Your Service #8 - Final Thank You
So there .... a year and a half of interviewing, researching, discussing, designing, painting, worrying, installing ...... followed by 6 weeks, 24 days, 4 talks, 2 radio interviews and 3 written texts for the At Your Service exhibition.
At Your Service #7, 5 Giants and Mortality
At Your Service - text by Heather Ditch from Go-Native, September 2018.
At Your Service #6
The NHS belongs to the people. It is there to improve our health and well being, supporting us to keep mentally and physically well, to get better when we are ill and, when we cannot fully recover, to stay as well as we can to the end of our lives.
At Your Service #5
The last couple of months seem to have flown by. In June I finished the final interview with Yerusalem from Italy and I'm now on my last few paintings, starting to plan the exhibition at Yorkshire Artspace that opens on 27th September.
At Your Service #4
I have been working on a portrait of a European employee from Russia. Bizarrely, neither of us knew whether Russia was a European country. I initially felt a bit stupid but Bogdana wasn't quite sure herself where Russia belonged. Interesting conversation with a very quiet intelligent woman.
At Your Service #3
The best thing that happened in the last couple of months was that I was lucky to get a temporary space to work within Yorkshire Artspace - right on the top floor, overlooking the city.
At Your Service #2
To date I have interviewed 4 Europeans who are all working at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and all 4 of them have been really interesting, kind and very generous with their time.
At Your Service #1
Yesterday, 29th March 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May triggered Article 50 in order for the UK to start negotiating its way out of the European Union.
Béla Hollande in Transit
I'm just waiting for my flight back to the UK, sitting in Eindhoven airport watching airplanes landing and taking off and wondering whether this trip has been worthwhile ....