Cumbria Coastal Residencies: Exhibition at Florence Arts Centre, Egremont
September 6 – October 13, 2024
A year on from their research along Cumbria’s coast, three artists will be sharing work at Florence Arts Centre. It’s an exciting and thought-provoking exhibition that gives insights into each artist’s work and the role of collaboration and process in arts-research.
Alistair Debling, Jamie Jenkinson and Cristina Picchi were selected from more than 100 applicants. In 2022 they headed to the west coast of Cumbria as part of Cumberland’s Coastal Programme. The artists were paired with an academic specialist at the Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas at Cumbria University, to promote interdisciplinary collaborations in place-based research. It’s been great for the PLACE Collective to have helped with creating these connections, and to co-curate the exhibition.
Each artist approached their exploration of the west coast of Cumbria in a different way, encountering new places and perspectives with the support of local residents, and developing their specific line of enquiry and their creative responses.
About the artists and their work
The artists’ work is concerned with place, queer ecologies, what goes unseen, how nature and industry interact, arts-science research, and the power of art to shift narratives. They resist Romantic visions of the Lake District; instead, their research has been driven by an interest in in/visibility, safety and scales of time.
Their film, photography, installation and audio pieces reveal unseen aspects of lives on the west coast and invite discussions about identity, belonging, heritage and futures.
Alistair Debling: ‘Half Lives’
– architectures of safety; (re)presentations of nuclear, mining and farming perspectives.
Film and installations.
“Half Lives features interviews with members of Sellafield Nuclear Power Station’s internal LGBTQ+ network. Sellafield stands on the site of the UK’s first nuclear weapons tests, which then became Britain’s first nuclear power station. It had an extended life recycling European nuclear waste until finally starting a 100 year decommissioning process in 2022. Sellafield is a seemingly unlikely host of one of West Cumbria’s only public-facing queer groups. However, conversations with queer-identifying staff reveal unexpected connections between the work of decommissioning—of building, architecturally, extraordinarily safe spaces—and the work of the network to build socially safe spaces within a historically unwelcoming industry.”
Based in Cumbria, Alistair Debling makes films, photographs, performances, meals and installations that share unexpected stories about rural life. His work investigates the relationships between diverse fields, from ecology and queer nightlife to militarism, agriculture and architecture.
Jamie Jenkinson: ‘Gathering’
– local voices and shifting of scales in time and place
Side specific sound installation, illustrations and images.
gathering is a 5.1 surround sound archive, recorded in 2022 during 30 days backpacking across what was the Copeland District. This alternative archive — currently exhibited as nattering at Millom Library — comes together around experiences of gatherings. Reflecting current and lost pockets of habitation / community / sharing that have left their marks across the district. Pubs / vapour bars / repurposed nightclubs / the peak of Scafell Pike / peak tourist season / ancient stone circles / Roman ruins / banks of Sand Martins / St Bees’ Guillemots / sands of Drigg / cairns / Sellafield’s nuclear waste / Haverigg’s Black-headed gulls / caves of Alcathoes bats / fires on the beach / … These places became sites of dialogue with people / animals / foliage / landscapes / elements, recorded and collated to surround and traverse the listener, as a place of gathering.
Jamie Jenkinson is an artist, researcher, and programmer based in sunny Morecambe. He is interested in low-cost and accessible creative practices, user cultures, quantum philosophies, improvisation and decentralisation. Jamie is an associate tutor at the Royal College of Art, and co-programmes the online platform xviix, and Morecambe project space, Jewellers.
Cristina Picchi: ‘Flow’
– water, the shaping of place, and the microscopic worlds within water
Film, three screen presentation.
“For The Flow, I followed a metaphorical river (in reality, made of different streams and rivers) from its source, through the fells, the lakes and eventually to the sea taking in abandoned mines, lighthouses, and the slow mechanic movement of the off shore wind farm. Local biologist Gill Notman gathered and tested water samples and the results and microscopic images are featured in the film. Sound design is a vital part of my practice and I used contact microphones to capture the vibrations of objects and locations on land and underwater, which became part of an immersive soundscape reflecting the place and people’s past and present, against a backdrop of ghostly industrial leftovers and breathtaking coastline.”
Cristina Picchi is an Italian filmmaker, artist and writer. Her short films, documentaries and video installations have been screened worldwide, winning prizes including the Silver Leopard in Locarno, and a nomination for Best Short Film at the Italian Academy Awards and at the European Film Awards. Picchi is currently developing a feature creative documentary, About The End, exploring apocalyptic scenarios and fantasies in different communities and continents. The film was nominated for the Solinas Scriptwriting Prize and is supported by the Swedish Film Institute and the Sundance Institute.
Artists and University of Cumbria
Cristina Picchi worked particularly closely with Dr Gill Notman, Course Director in Marine and Freshwater Biology.
Jamie Jenkinson spent time with Dr Jamie Mcphie, Associate Professor of Environmental Humanities and Social Science.
Alistair Debling met with Dr Lois Mansfield, former Professor of Upland Landscapes at the University, and now Rural and Environmental Land Management consultant at Environmentors, and with Dr Jamie Mcphie.
Funding
The artists’ residency placements and the exhibition have been funded by Arts Council England and Cumberland Council, with support from the University of Cumbria and the Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas. The exhibition is being curated by Harriet Fraser and Rob Fraser (PLACE Collective co-founders), with additional support from Will Rees. The residencies and exhibition are part of Cumberland Council’s Coastal Programme.
Florence Arts Centre
… is open Friday – Sunday. Please check the website for opening times, location and contact details. https://www.florenceartscentre.com/
