Creative portfolio
SheWolf work begins when I arrive in a new place. Projects are born out of a desire to build a deeper connection to the places that I find myself in. More than just a geographical mapping or knowing of an area, working through the voice and body, my projects (re)inhabit and (re)awaken storied landscapes (internal and external).
There's No Place Like (Flat) Holm - Circe's Call
Research and Development
"For centuries I have been silent, ravaged by wind and rain, seen from the shore – unreachable. Now - as sea levels rise - I speak. These are my stories but also yours. On my shores you sought God, searched for a cure, or at least a peaceful passing. You sang your songs of prayer and praise; songs from your homelands offering comfort in a time of cholera. I was your island of infection but now infection rages on the mainland and I can only watch across the water. I’ve heard your cries into the wind, your songs of mourning from the shore. Now I sing you mine".
This screendance project explores the interconnections between landscape, body and voice bringing to life the geological, sociological, historical and natural heritage of Flat Holm Island (in the Bristol Channel). The project emerges from Georgina's Develop Your Creative Practice award (Arts Council England) which supported her as a newly-disabled artist to make a transition of practice that explored film as a way of capturing embodied landscape work. Since relocating from England to Wales (and COVID 19) filming moved to Lavernock Point and distant Flat Holm Island - formerly a cholera isolation hospital. This work explores her experiences of chronic pain and the damage fast paced modern living does to both the body and earth. It is expressed in this early research and development as 'Circe’s Call'.
The project has been shortlisted for an Unlimited Main Commission and hopes to be developed into a short film. Filmed seasonally, across one year, this creative echo of the island’s (Circe’s) voice promises to bring to life the history of this unique landscape, showcasing Wales’ cultural heritage in an innovative contemporary arts context.
Cavesong - Symphony in a Miner Key
Performance research
Cavesong Symphony in a Miner Key was based at the Dudley Limestone Caverns. Bombarded by sounds of 21st century life, we journeyed underground to make a return to a more ancient world of sound. In two way communication with the landscape, exploring sounds that had passed through the cavern, we asked; How can the voice of the landscape (sound) teach us something about our collective pasts and the evolution of human beings?
Situated underground, the caverns are adjoined, above ground, by the Wrens Nest and Priory housing estates. The historical and contemporary communion of these landscapes, the ancient alongside the modern, offering a unique investigation into the human connection to place. Taking a natural, geographical and historical approach to our exploration of the site, we explored the term acoustic ecology in its broadest sense. That is, the relationship via sound between human and environment.
This innovative collaboration between international singers and sound artists researched new ways to articulate the immensity of geological change through human/artistic means, documenting cycles of change in local landscape and human life to create a symphony for 21st century Dudley,
This project was supported by Arts Council England, The Sir Barry Jackson Trust and Birmingham REP.
Wolf in the City (Poland)
Artist-in-Residence
An expression of wildness, Wolf in the City contemplated the connection between land, body and instinctual knowing. Migrating through a foreign landscape (the city of Wroclaw, Poland) a lone wolf-woman seeks her place in the world. Listening for the call of the instinctual knowing self she summons the wisdom of the female body to meet her face to face. In exploring the felt sensation of the body and its interaction with the external world this evocative work captured the challenge of seeking the ‘instinctual’ within contemporary living.
Working in collaboration with photographer Arkadiusz Susidko, this project shared through film, photography and performance, research gathered during Georgina's artistic residency at ArtLOKAL Gallery (Wroclaw, Poland). It was inspired by the writing of Clarissa Pinkola Estes author of Women Who Run With Wolves, interviews conducted with other women, on-foot explorations of the city, encounters with the body, and anatomical explorations that focus on the pelvis as a channel through which the instinctual is received and experienced – connecting external landscapes to inner emotional life.
Presented first at ArtLOKAL Gallery, Poland, extracts were later presented at Artists! Reveal Yourself! at AE Harris, Birmingham. The project now looks to welcome Artist-in Residence opportunities to find new wolves and new cities to 'wildly' explore. Invitations open to international photographers/filmmakers wishing to collaborate.