Project Title: How one thing leads to another: a story of recovery
Location: Taunton County Museum, Taunton, Somerset, UK
Date: 14th – 19th July 2025
Artist’s Statement
My practice centres around using auto-experience as story, using things that happen to me as ways of finding wider connection with others; looking for the sameness that transcends boundaries. Tackling subject matter ranging from dementia, the ancients, to mental health, I seek to explore those shared experiential happenings that need no explanation or translation as they are the threads that connect us together at a human level. In a world where we seem to be increasingly withdrawing into the self, the ‘me’, I ask if by finding shared experiential wisdoms, however small, we can bring both individuals and populations together to engage with other-centred ways of belonging, understanding and thinking.
With creative methodologies in a state of flux, having been thrown the mental health curve ball, I continue to turn to my experience to guide me and continue on.
Contextual Statement
‘How one thing leads to another: a story of recovery’ is a body of work composed of a multi-media textile piece, 221cm high x 133cm wide, worked with stitching and text, using a body-mapping methodology; and a video, duration of 16 min 56 sec, where the viewer encounters a storytelling of why and how the work was made.
Both pieces are autobiographical covering a period between Oct 2023 and May 2025. Beginning when at the age of 54 I had a heart attack, a health crisis then complicated further by a university policy that would only allow me to pause my studies if I repaid the module fees – a cost I just couldn’t afford. With no time to process, and no time to heal I had to push on from my hospital bed or lose it all. This in turn led to a deterioration in my mental health, loss of creative practice and a year-long hiatus in my MA Fine Art final major project.
This body of work is a response to these unfolding events, becoming a vehicle for healing and repair; a personal recovery, where the kinship of support networks, and the significance of place have been explored through a body-mapping process guided by the theoretical frameworks of auto-theory and psychogeography.
Project Documentation
With thanks:
My heartfelt thanks are extended to my body-mappers (who wish to remain anonymous), all those who know and all those who came. In addition a big thank you to Josie Cockram, Course Leader MA Fine Art (Online), Falmouth School of Art, for all her support and getting me through.
Further Information: