Swimming A Long Way Together 13.10.23 // Sea Lanes Swimming Pool, Brighton

Swimming a long way together is a durational project led by visual artist and long distance swimmer Vanessa Daws curated by Rosie Hermon. It is inspired by pioneer swimmer Mercedes Gleitz.

Amy Cutler and I participated in a 47hr swimathon organised at Sea Lanes Brighton with Fabrica inspired by Mercedes Gleitz’s epic solo record breaking swim of same length in Worthing 90yrs earlier. We provided entertainment for the swimmers doing laps in loops over the same number of hours.

We were delighted to create a live performance and ambient projection of an under / over water dance of strokes and bubbles in ongoing spirals using flowers, light and sound to hint at the movements of the swimmers.

Meshworks with Amy Cutler 30.09.23 // Deptford X at Creekside Discovery Centre

Beautiful time with Dr. Amy Cutler, live floristing, sound making and projecting through creek water and ready-made votive display found on top shelf at Creekside Discovery Centre in Deptford (re-displaying their finds from the creek.)

The moon pulled apart the clouds to hover over the floral mesh cinema screen, whilst broken creek Gods ranging from Shivas to Ronald Macdonald were dressed in fragrant herbs, bright dried flowers and those historically found along embankments.

Our portable experimental cinema was designed as part of a performative after dark event, with torchlight, live projecting ecologies back at the site of origin. We experimented with forms of floral arrangement using creek plants and natural and man-made detritus projected through water gathered on site. We created an altar to findings in the creek and explored these items in relationship to rubbish, e.g supermarket trolley eco-systems, which provide vital structure often for mudbanks and smaller shaols of fish.

A bankside floral hanging is loosely inspired by the embanking of the creek over the last centuries and was made from plants connecting to the area, including hops (which would have been transported in abundance from Kent to breweries) willow, buddleja and Michaelmas daisy (which is celebrated day prior to our performance with feast of Archangel Michael and all the Angels.) These flowers were all sourced locally to Deptford and foraged with permission. Bespoke projection surface within the hanging is inspired by plankton mesh and specimen inspection nets.

Adventitious Routes and Rhizomes a collaboration with Amy Ash 13.03.23 - 20.08.23 // Plas Bodfa and Window135 Gallery

Amy Ash (CA) and Alice McCabe (UK / AUS) have been collaborating on creative projects since 2017. Their collaborative work, under the moniker of Adventitious Routes & Rhizomes, looks to the characteristics, language, mythology and historical contexts of plants for guidance. With plants as their mentors, Adventitious Routes & Rhizomes translate plant wisdom through varied methodologies as a means to both disrupt systems and discuss difficult topics that resonate into the realm of human communities. Previous projects have focused on immigration, queer ecologies, and disrupting colonial histories.

Adventitious Routes & Rhizomes last worked together in 2019 through the Cultivar Residency, where they were hosted by @museumoftheflatearth on Fogo Island, Newfoundland, off the Atlantic Coast of Canada. The Museum of the Flat Earth is an offshoot of the absurdist conceptual platform, the Canadian Flat Earth Society, which was founded by Leo Ferrari, Alden Nowlan and Ray Fraser in the 70s. The Museum of the Flat Earth in Fogo Island, is run by Kay Burns who uses Flat Earth Theory as a playful curatorial platform and means of promoting critical thought, investigation and research in (and via) art.

During the Cultivar residency Adventitious Routes & Rhizomes created a series of works intended to open discussions on human travel, borders and boundaries. These range from interventions on local touristic signage, to performance and playful pedagogies. In each case, the work centres and translates plant community wisdom and ways of being in the hopes of generating new understandings of how we, as humans, organize ourselves and relate to one another.

Adventitious Routes & Rhizomes are delighted to continue the collaboration during a residency hosted by Plas Bodfa in Wales. Adventitious Routes & Rhizomes, is grateful for the dedicated time and space to pursue their work on another rural island, a site of in-betweenness that punctuates the Atlantic between the two artists’ respective homes. While rich in unique history, culture and character, these in-between land masses are also links in the chain of European-North American migration. For Alice McCabe and Amy Ash, two white artists, these locales are also important reminders of their respective positionality within the system of colonization, and present valuable sites for learning, reflection and action.

Plas Bodfa is a 100-year-old manor home transformed into a gallery, art space, and community activator that creates unique, inclusive, creative projects with roots on the Isle of Anglesey and branches throughout Wales and the world. Plas Bodfa aims to bring together people of different ages, knowledge bases, interests and backgrounds to share with each other, learn from each other’s experiences and create something new collectively.

Adventitious Routes & Rhizomes look forward to presenting both new and re-fathomed works at window 135, which is an active vitrine gallery and performance space in New Cross Gate, London, UK. Since opening in 2004, window 135 have developed a mandate of showing a new exhibition every week, highlighting exciting new works and practices.