Stories Collected Live in Ink
Since I took up an art residency with London International Festival of Theatre - under a paper cut chandelier in an allotment shed in 2004 - I have been engaged in a vast project that has taken me all over the UK, listening, writing and drawing live with members of the public and community groups. I started by collecting food stories, but the practice has expanded into many themes. It is a process that tests my listening, memory, drawing, connection with others, and spontaneity. It regularly tips into poetry. Wherever, whenever I am on the story drawing road I aim to take a photocopier and a person known as a photocopier whisperer, so that each narrator can be furnished with a same size copy (A3). This way the process can truly be seen as both collaboration and exchange. The originals are in boxes in my studio, there are over 2000. A lot of ink. I hope to have a comprehensive show of them in a public space one of these days.