ash leavesImogen Ashwin: curriculum vitae

Further and higher education

2001-2002: MA (Fine Art), Norwich School of Art and Design.

1998-2001: BA (Hons) Fine Art, Norwich School of Art and Design (First Class Honours).

1997-1998: Access Course in Art and Design, Norwich City College (Distinction).

Recent exhibitions, commissions and awards

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

Recent art-related work

2005 - 2008

Freelance art teaching for Kett Sixth Form, Blyth-Jex School, Norwich.

2004

Gallery

Please click here to view.

Artist's Statement

My work is concerned with the ambiguous interplay between human activity and the landscape. I am interested in the physical and psychological residues that may be present in particular locations - prehistoric monuments, crossroads, the north side of churches, watery places - and in particular by the way that the irrational or supernatural continues to be interwoven with contemporary life through superstition and folklore.

Fascinated by myth, magic and (pre)history, my practice involves spending time in places that resonate with a certain genius loci; sites where things have happened and perhaps still happen. These are places that might contain residues of past human experience - or something else. Sometimes, setting up sound, photographic or video equipment, I let the essence of a place unfold. I record and re-present my experience, aiming to leave viewers with the uncanny feeling that they have just missed something, something is about to happen, or that something is happening already that they will be aware of if they study the image intently. I'm interested in the extent to which, even in the 21st century, something older and less 'rational' within our natures might affect our responses in spite of ourselves. At other times, I perform specific tasks or actions, or set up scenarios, and record them, too.

I'm interested in the ephemeral and often I leave things to augment the layers that (perhaps) accrue in certain resonant places. At the same time, my practice seeks to challenge the passive ingestion of 'heritage' as something at a remove from our lives today, to be gently enjoyed as a leisure activity. Through photography, video, installation and mixed-media, I explore the links between past and present, mundane and arcane. Combining natural materials of ancient significance with digital technology, my aim is to contain and reveal natural and magical currents. The viewer is left to decide whether or not these currents actually exist.

In the past, I have made work concerning such subjects as a particular country crossroads; an agricultural pond; Seahenge (Norfolk Bronze Age timber circle); medieval wall paintings of 'black' saints; the yew; and north ('devil's') doors of medieval churches. More recently, Trevor and I investigated the Bronze Age barrow cemetery on Salthouse Heath in North Norfolk. Looking at the relationship of the barrows to the medieval church beyond has led indirectly to my current focus on the hopes, fears and joys of our medieval ancestors.

My most recent/current project is Festial. In 2006 I felt that I needed to commit myself to a long-term project that would let me define the strengths and weaknesses in my practice and specifically the areas that I really wanted to push in future. An Arts Council Grants for the Arts award helped to fund the idea I'd had of setting up a year-long, self directed residency in a medieval church. Visiting the site on the Julian calendar dates of twelve medieval festivals from May 2007 to May 2008, I explored the extent to which I could empathise with and even 'inhabit' the strange landscape of the medieval ancestors that we all inevitably share. Rather than re-enact these festivals I used them as a springboard, drawing on memory, half-remembered children's books, the myriad fragments we all carry around with us. My body became an integral element of the work, in part to draw attention to the difficulties inherent in projecting ourselves onto an alien culture.

It often seems as though contemporary art practice has either to be 'urban and gritty' or to focus on contemporary culture or political issues elsewhere in the world to be seen as valid. I would definitely like to challenge that and to make work that can, where necessary, be as hard-hitting as anything else, despite usually being rooted in a rural landscape.

November 2008