Saturday 13th April
Hazel Dowling
East Sussex based artist Hazel Dowling presents her latest film work, Skein, 2023:
Through elliptical interviews and sequences of staged somatic practice, two women engage in an exchange that begins with movement, as a means for recovering narrative fragments relating to the central character’s search to learn details of the secrets her body may hold. The trauma theorist Peter Levine discusses muscle memory as the deepest held form of memory, and in this vain, bodily misalignment and pain are approached as a potential key to deciphering past events and actions, not accessible through conscious memory.
Dialogue is displaced by a movement score, devised in response to the condition of hyperacusis, whereby the artefacts of sound vibrations held in all objects is intensified. This exchange between spoken and embodied memories builds a prism through which the condition of trauma induced childhood amnesia is explored.
Join us from 4.30pm at the gallery for drinks, an introduction from the artist and featuring an additional film, A world of consequences deferred too long, 2019.
Robertsbridge
Woodland
Project
“…It’s a lovely reassuring experience to feel safe, unrestricted surrounded by the elements, trying something new and hands-on…”
Participant comment
“the blackShed curator, Kenton Lowe, always wanted to focus his work on good health, and bringing about an enhanced sense of well-being. Recognising how the experience of being involved with something outside can benefit mental health, he was keen to bring people together and work within the local landscape - with the approval of the Parish Council, the Woodland Trust cleared the way and allowed the project to take place in Springfield Woods, Salehurst (Robertsbridge) - all he had to now was to recruit some artists.”
“The project began February 2022 and ran for 12 weeks. Artists Martin Brockman and Jim Roseveare led an enthusiastic group of individuals from varying backgrounds into the woods to take part in a series of exciting and creative activities. Teaching and demonstrating traditional woodland skills; simple tool making, tree identification and forestry care, through to selecting natural material used in the production of organic pigments and inks, and digging woodland clay alongside crude firing techniques.”
Photographs by Julian Anderson
