Searching for a space that cares: Screenings and conversation

The artists discuss their new Engagement commission, Searching for a space that cares, and their experience of working together on the Spike Island and Creative Youth Network Engagement Fellowship for Artists 2024.

The evening comprises film screenings and a group conversation chaired by Carmen Juliá, curator at Spike Island, with questions from the audience. This is followed by a live performance by artist Eden Leo, and a chance to visit the artists’ studio and see their work first-hand.

AMELIA HAWK

Amelia Hawk (she/her) is a visual artist based in Birmingham. Hawk creates experiences and conversation as a way to make and share artwork. She is guided by feelings and emotions, exploring what might make her angry, frustrated or empowered. Her work often addresses mental health and socio-political subjects. Hawk combines counselling tools within her practice and workshops to create a safe space for participants.

Hawk holds an MA from Kunstakademiet Oslo (2015). She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally including venues such as The Festival of Northern Norway, Intercultural Museum, Oslo; Munch Museum, Oslo; Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; Tenthaus, Oslo; Luda, St Petersburg; National Gallery, Prague. Recently she undertook ACE funded R&D to research how to integrate counselling strategies into her practice resulting in The Listening Line phoneline, Listening Objects, and other associated works including an emotional coffee van commissioned by Multistory and hosted in Warley Woods, Sandwell.

ROUX

Roux (he/him) is a Bristol-based actor, performance artist, director and producer. Working across mediums of drag, theatre, circus, movement, and community-conscious organisation, he is the founder of the trans+ production company House of Boussé. Roux’s practice moves like a mushroom; a transformative, mycelial storyteller exploring sociocultural fairy tales and interactive rage raves. Nothing is safe from the piercing reimagination of Gender Criminal.

Roux (aka Gender Criminal) has performed in London, Bristol, and across the UK’s music festival circuit. He has recently featured in season four of the television series Sex Education. Burroughs is producing and directing his next run of TRANS/FORM, a show exploring trans+ identities through the body.

EDEN

eden (they/them) is a movement artist based between Bristol and Manchester. eden’s practice is underpinned by the diverse meanings of movement (physical/ideological/political developmental/musical/communal), offering inspiration for the performances and installations they create.

eden is interested in reframing how audiences interact with their movement works, alongside presenting dance outside of the traditional theatrical context. Their practice often uses improvisational movement and writing as a starting point to explore recurring themes of liminality, grief and ritual.

eden was one of the performers in Young In Hong’s Five Acts, Spike Island. Currently, they are developing their movement installations The Perspective Pieces and working with Move Manchester to develop their new dance theatre work, Queeries.

SAFFRON MURRAY-BROWNE

Saffron Murray-Browne (she/her) is an artist based in Bristol. Murray-Browne uses the human form as a vehicle to communicate her thoughts on intimacy, control, and the unavoidable baggage of art history. Trained as a painter, she has recently begun exploring video as an extension of the 2D plane. Underpinning this is the artist’s interest in control, and the extent to which a work may hold power over its viewer. Frequently using herself and her partner as subject matter, Murray-Browne’s work examines wider notions of power and feeling, through the lens of her own personal relationships.

Murray-Browne graduated from Fine Art at Bath School of Art in 2020 with the Peter Kinley Prize for Painting.

LILY SERENDIPITY

Lily Serendipity (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist living and working across the South-West of England. Using textile, sculpture, installation and performance, Serendipity explores psychoanalytic themes in relation to their attempts to navigate everyday life.

Serendipity reflects on their personal life experiences and memories, as well as recurring themes of loneliness, awkwardness, obsession and metamorphosis. Their work takes direct influence from popular culture, referencing characters, films and books to communicate Serendipity’s personal narrative.

Lily Serendipity received their BA in Creative Arts Practice from Bath Spa University.

WEST OF ENGLAND VISUAL ARTS ALLIANCE (WEVAA)

WEVAA is a consortium partnership of nine organisations co-led by Spike Island and Visual Arts South West including the Brunswick Club, Bath Spa School of Art, Bristol City Council, Creative Youth Network, Culture Weston, North Somerset Council and UWE Bristol. This alliance is delivering a 3-year programme of activity with the aim of supporting visual arts progression in the region, with the collective vision for the visual arts community in Bristol and the West of England to become more progressive, sustainable and inclusive by 2024. As part of this programme, and to support young people to develop their understanding and experience of the visual arts sector, this fellowship provides the opportunity for a group of young people to develop an Engagement commission with a nationally significant artist. The co-produced work will be shown on Spike Island’s digital channels and the process of creating this work ensures the young artists receive mentoring as part of the process.

Image: Amelia Hawk in collaboration with Roux, eden, Saffron Murray-Browne and Lily Serendipity, 'Searching for a space that cares', Spike Island and Creative Youth Network Engagement Commission 2024. Photograph by Saffron Murray-Browne

Host or Publisher Spike Island