Kirsten Campbell-Howes
stills from a 4 minute film
Title Inside outside
“I am the garden… Without distinction, without separation.”
- Siân Davey
Sian Davey’s work, The Garden (2021), conveys a range of attitudes by the subjects of her photographs, some completely at ease outside whereas others were awkward or even defiant. This encouraged me to explore my own ambivalence through photographs and films, pushing myself to occupy outside space and my own body in more purposeful and intentional ways.
During the research for my final piece I experimented with photographing spontaneous, playful interactions with others, which has made me keen to explore more public-facing, performance-based works in future. None of these approaches would have been conceivable for me prior to the course.
The work explores my feelings of discomfort towards fully occupying space (my tendency is to want to disappear, not to “fill the frame”), to push myself to occupy space differently and to begin to think and act like an artist.
“ Each of the short courses has helped me push my boundaries and to begin to develop new skills and confidence in myself as an emerging artist. Using a sketchbook has become second nature during the course and I now have several on the go and am developing my drawing and painting practices consistently, in a much less constrained way than before.”