This is a complete listing of the commissioned artists for this project with an overview of their work
Dave Allinson
Renewed interest in an audio visual installation (AV1) released in CD format in 1998 provided the inspiration behind the film-work made for the PP&LM exhibition.
Working to achieve the release of a CD titled AV1 (1998) Dave Allinson had teamed up with producer Phill Brown to carry out a series of performance based installations in the North East and subsequently the Edinburgh Festival. Much of the initial audio recording took place in Darlington with Brown mixing and mastering the finished CD in a London studio. The installation was then commissioned for the opening of the Corner-house nightclub located in the undercroft at Middlesbrough station. The work was presented through the use of multiple light projections using the Victorian architecture of the undercroft as its screen; floor sculptures with speakers and additional screens located on the walls and floors created an immersive ambient soundscape changing the acoustic properties and volume shifts as each viewer moved through the tunnels, passages and storage rooms of the nightclub. The track ‘Piano’ was specifically written for this installation by a musician and singer-songwriter Brown had worked with previously on Talk Talk albums. Playing in isolation in a storage room – where a deconstructed piano and light projection had been placed – the choreography and composition of Piano filtered out into the entire undercroft, blending with the other continuous looping tracks.
The foundational grounding in Allinson’s PP&LM work can be traced back to having organic natural origins in the landscape and/or the figure. The work screened in the exhibition is a refreshed visual response to the original AV1 soundtrack and attempts to retain some of the qualities and components of the Corner-house installation. Revisiting AV1 work prompted Allinson to acquire skill-sets associated with current and developing technologies; re-apply his preference for hand-held camera work rather than tripod; make staccato interruptions of shutter speed to unsettle the inherent legato of filmic movement and; hold closely the intent to bring temporality and spontaneity into play. It’s a music thing.
Three decades since leaving a career in the music business behind him the enforced isolation of Covid led Allinson to re-engage with the music recording process. He is currently in the process of completing the recording and mixing of two albums for online release this spring; an opera soundtrack in collaboration with soprano Beatriz de Sousa; an indie, song based album in the style of his earlier recordings and; look forward to AV1 being re-released on vinyl in 2024 by the Brooklyn based record label Ba Da Bing.
Dave Allinson,
Screen one
Dave Allinson,
Screen two
Dave Allinson,
Screen three
Pip Dickens
I am a painter concerned with visual perception, in particular, examining and challenging theories and methodologies of colour reception, light & spatial movement
Pip Dickens is a painter. She has a Masters in Fine Art from The Slade School of Art, University College London, graduating in 2000. She is Lecturer in Fine Art (Painting) at Lancaster University and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Member of The National Association for Fine Art Education.
She has had many national and international solo and group exhibitions and her work is in numerous public, commercial and private collections in the UK and overseas including the Prints & Drawings Collection at the British Museum.
Concepts of illusion and double meaning are recurring themes – the notion that we may receive two contrasting visual (or intellectual) responses to a single stimulant. Phantasmagoria (definition – a sequence of real or imaginary images like that seen in a dream) and unusual natural phenomenon are key sources of her work. She juxtaposes conventional painting techniques with innovative methods to create unusual surfaces, layers and textures. Depth and surface contrasts are particularly important in her work.
The decision to make this painting is of itself an act of radical non-resistance, a depiction of authority, independence of mind and personal empowerment through its intent. The girl we see is captured, objectified and holds us to account. The self-same transformational values central to the show – essentially a love letter to Pease, Butler and Spence et al – to pose the begged question ‘What about now?’ Place, People & Living Memory is an invitation for the viewer to mirror their own family experience, re-imagine their own sense of place and dig a bit deeper into family ties, a legacy they own and belong.
Pip Dickens,
‘Girl with the Red Bow’,
Oil on paper, 2016
Alec Gatenby
“The universe using me for my picture” Jan Rose Kasmir, August 21st 1967 Vietnam war protest, Washington DC. Quoted in a follow up interview in July 2016.
New work commissioned for the PP&LM exhibition, printed in December of 2023 at Kapitaal in Utrecht. A five layer, large format screen print reinterpreting the 1870 depiction of ‘Pocahontas Saving the Life of Captain John Smith’. This work provides a picturesque version of reality.
Alec Gatenby, ‘Pochahontas Saving the Life of Captain John Smith, a 21st Century Redaction of a 17th Century Fable’, Screenprint, 2023
A video work highlighting women in a range of protests around the world over the last 50+ years. Shown in contrast to and often directly opposing the security forces deployed to maintain order at these events. The idea behind it is to highlight women facing police lines in moments of protest. Some of these images may already be familiar to the viewer, they often become ‘viral’ images shared for a brief moment in time and are then quickly forgotten. The first part of the film suggests being drawn into a world behind the screen where matter is in constant fragmentation and ideas rarely come together to form a coherent whole.
Alec Gatenby, ‘Protest’, Screen still 1, 2023
Alec Gatenby, ‘Protest’, Screen still 2, 2023
Alec Gatenby, ‘Protest’, Screen still 3, 2023
Claire Grey
“Essentially the camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality, and eventually in one’s own.” Susan Sontag
Claire has always identified herself as a teacher rather than a photographer. However throughout her career she has made her own work. She became interested in Jo Spence and Terry Dennett’s ideas through their magazine Camerawork and their book Photography Politics One. Like Jo and Terry she became aware of the limits of documentary photography and interested in more constructed and staged imagery. She was inspired by seeing the work of John Heartfield and how by combining two elements he was able to create a third meaning. She collaborated with the Cultural Studies team at the ILEA Cockpit Arts Workshop, who were critiquing the limits of art education in schools. She contributed to their magazine Schooling and Culture. In 1981, on one of the magazine’s Women’s issues, she worked with Jo Spence who encouraged her to make photomontages to illustrate the articles. Claire was Exhibitions Officer at the Cockpit Gallery, producing laminated photographic exhibitions, which toured around schools and community groups and later became a lecturer in the Cockpit Cultural Studies department. She contributed essays to the books The Meanings of Domestic Photography, and What Can a Woman Do with a Camera?
She was a member of several advisory groups, including the ILEA working party on photography in schools and the photography advisory group of the Arts Council, and a member of the Arts Council’s working party, submitting ideas on photography in the new national curriculum. In 1989, she became a lecturer in Photography, Film and Video Production at Kingsway College.
She has always been interested in history and after retiring from teaching, pursued her interests in local history and in domestic photography in genealogy. She has written two illustrated family history books. Her work in the exhibition has grown out of her family history research and her love of combining images and text. Her most recent book Don’t tell me how to run my art school published last year was written to accompany the photographs of John Walmsley and describes the Student sit-in at Guildford school of Art in 1968.
Link to: Grey Ladies – Extended Photo Essay
Link to: Cockpit Gallery Website
Claire Grey, ‘Grey Ladies’, Photo Essay, 2023
Bridie Jackson
Immersive, voice centred work that I refer to as docusongs
A docusong by Bridie Jackson and Josephine Butler College, a constituent college of Durham University.
Link to song: ‘Comme je trouve’ – ‘As I find’
This piece, created in collaboration with Josephine Butler College, explores the key themes, achievements and questions raised by the life and work of Victorian social reformer Josephine Butler, reflected upon through a contemporary lens.
For the piece, Jackson interviewed a diverse range of voices from the College community, including visiting lecturers, College leaders, students and trustees, about the significance of their namesake, reflecting on her incredible legacy and its impact on both the College and wider society. She then composed and recorded original music inspired by themes within the interviews, interspersed with soundscapes and new arrangements of historical songs within the public domain, to create a sonic framework for the interviews and stories.
Bridie Jackson is a composer, producer and sound artist based in the North East of England. She creates immersive, voice centred work that she refers to as docusongs, where she aims to uncover and examine unheard or under-heard stories through combining different sound elements including original music, recorded interviews and archive footage. Her most recent piece, ‘Bees, Bees, Hark to Your Bees’ about ancient traditions of bee keeping, was exhibited at Woodhorn Museums as part of the exhibition series, A Northumberland Menagerie, by visual artist Bethan Maddocks, commissioned by Museums Northumberland.
Jackson also composes and produces bespoke musical scores for theatre and dance productions. Recent credits include ‘The Little Prince’ for The Customs House, the touring contemporary dance piece, ‘Jumpers for Goalposts’ for Meta4 Dance and Changing Relations ‘A is for Amy’.
Bridie Jackson
Photo credit: Kelly Briggs Atkinson
Karen Melvin
Revisiting past ideas is a bit like recycling and finding new uses for things, things that might have been forgotten.
Jo Spence and Rosie Martin opened a can of worms for Karen Melvin, after attending their workshops in the 1990s looking in particular at family photographs which she always thought were perfectly ordinary and charming. Once she understood the nuances beneath these idyllic projections, she began constructing imagery around feminism, fairy tale archetypes and domestic relationships. She made photographic paper cut-out images of friends dressed up and then inserted them into real still life tableaux in the garden, the kitchen, the studio, to be photographed with a large plate camera. The ideas around often hidden social and personal contexts have informed her work ever since, even moving into recent large montage paintings reflecting on climate change, loss of species, set against the every day narratives of contemporary life and taking place in the context of a garden.
Karen Melvin lectured in photography at Cleveland College of Art and Design, was a Northern Arts advisor on photography, had solo exhibitions in Jakarta, Indonesia and then across to Key West, Florida, Australia, London, Newcastle, Hexham, Slaley. Recent solo shows include Offcuts – Homing In, Small House Gallery, London; Torn
Photos, Healey Church, Northumberland; Flying Falling, the Customs House, South Shields, Tyne & Wear; Heaven and Earth, Tom Blau Gallery, London; Collaborations with Claudia Sacher include Breath of My Garden, installation at Gibside NT, Gateshead; Picnic at Stone Circle, Ladycross, Northumberland; No.3, installation, High Green Arts, VARC and Great Northumberland, Tarset.
Karen Melvin, ‘Paper Dolls Series: Cake & Fairy Godmother’, photographs. 2005
Pat Naldi
In “theoretical space” as Jo Spence exclaimed, “no-one can hear you scream”, so walk out the door and SCREAM, SCREAM, and SCREAM again.
“I am part of all that I have met” as written by Alfred Lord Tennyson in his poem Ulysses, encapsulates some
of my thoughts in writing the essay on Jo Spence.
Link to essay: In theoretical space no-one can hear you scream
If we are lucky, in time, we arrive at a stage when circumstances around us of a life lived precipitates a time of reflection; to acknowledge and identify that we are the sum of all our experiences and people we have met. Jo Spence’s work came from her lived life, and The Final Project (1991-1992) came from her impending death. For this, she looked to her past and used negatives from her extensive archive. In writing this essay on Spence, making public the content of our tutorial reports is a means through which for me to reflect on the person and artist that I have become; the how and why.
In the same way, the video work The Future is a Time After the Present (2024), reflects on the journey from one stage of life to another. Shot on location in Dungeness, a promontory on the Kent coast, a figure traverses a salty pool of water created by the sea tides amongst the shingle. The figure resorts to swimming across to get to the other side. I first visited Dungeness as a teenager in the autumn of 1983. It was the first field trip our tutors took us on at the start of my undergraduate fine art degree course at Maidstone College of Art. Forty years later I find myself returning to this place where I entered a new phase of my life all those years ago to make a work in hindsight of the person and artist that I have become.
Pat Naldi, ‘The Future is a Time After the Present‘, Screen still 1, 2024
Pat Naldi, ‘The Future is a Time After the Present‘, Screen still 2, 2024
Alicia Paz
Alicia’s work is informed by her personal experience and offers a reflection on transcultural representation and identity, particularly that of women. Through her paintings and sculptures, Paz explores cultural hybrids, representations of family, and the complexities of kinship and lineage in a globalised world.
This large monochromatic piece is one of several “family trees” I have painted. These works are often composed of a multitude of imaginary and somewhat neurotic characters, strung beads, painted foliage, and various gothic demonstrative texts, arranged not in any particular genealogical order, but instead following instinctive relational rapports, hinted narratives.
The use of negative space and the choice of colours in this work partly references decorative traditions and techniques from the history of applied arts, and notably that of porcelain ceramics, in which the use of metal oxides such as cobalt or manganese, applied over a white glaze, produces an intense blue or a deep red over a white background. The items decorated thus are intended for a domestic realm, in the shape of ornate plates, saucers, cups… and this painting has much to do with the domestic. It explores the complicated inhabitants of a family, (albeit a mental one) and the
symbolic weight material accoutrements can have within a family, the bonds and connections objects can represent. Each tree in this series is a metaphor for the self, for the many voices and relationships that continually shape one’s identity.
In this painting titled The Lake House, the almost-bare branches evoke a stark, autumnal and perhaps “retro” atmosphere. Family members are represented by a set of doll-like suspended figures, inspired by an ensemble of vintage Italian puppets. Their stillness transforms them into spectators. Silently they observe and await the moment when they’ll be brought to life, when they can potentially be pulled, twisted, shaken or dropped, raised or lowered. Who pulls the strings, who has the power in this ménage of crimson marionettes? Necklaces and strung beads operate here as formal and allegorical connectors between psychological tropes, between dramatic personae. Gravity contributes to the
shapeliness of their curves, the indolence of their gentle swing.
Alicia Paz,
‘The Lake House’ 210 x 170 cm.
mixed media on canvas
In the Summer of 2022, whilst artist in residence at S1 Artspace in Sheffield, I had the opportunity to research the historic collections of Chatsworth House, in nearby Derbyshire. In consultation with their expert curatorial team, I looked at extraordinary paintings, sculptures, textiles, decorative arts, archival material as well as the Chatsworth House Theatre. This research inspired a new body of work in photography, using the camera-less technique of photograms. As I walked through the grand house, I instinctively took photographs with my phone, literally hundreds of them. I selected the most interesting ones among these and turned them into photocopies on acetate, cutting them, collaging them, and combining these with opaque and semi-opaque objects such as necklaces and scarves, to create my compositions.
Continuing to develop this project in partnership with my residency at Centre for Print Research, I decided to explore other material translations of these photographic images, by scanning them in high resolution and printing them onto fabrics, and then displaying these on a folding-screen structure composed of multiple sections. Viewers would be able to walk along and around the screen, seeing different images from different angles, on either side. My aim was to create a labyrinth of interrelated pictures, referencing both the maze in the Chatsworth Garden and the architectural layout of Park Hill Estate in Sheffield, where S1 Artspace is located. I wanted to create a rich dialogue between painting, photography, print and sculpture. Several framed photograms exist as part of this larger interdisciplinary body of work.
Alicia Paz,
‘Ghosts II’, 2022
Photogram on Ilford satin paper,
Framed, 30 x 24.5 cm
Nicky Peacock
The starting point is a ready-made wig block, manipulated and embellished...
Nicky Peacock was born in England during the last summer of the sixties. She suffered from chronic tonsillitis and enjoyed concrete play parks. A childhood truant, Nicky spent time at home writing girl centric ghost stories, or at the library looking for books on how to divine the past lives of the members of Depeche Mode. She discovered she wanted to be an artist when she photographed her cat wearing a knitted bonnet at a makeshift tea party.
Nicky is a multidisciplinary artist and storyteller. Previous incarnations include drummer in a Riot Grrrl band, fashion editor, Bronte Society writer in residence, and curator specialising in participatory and confessional arts.
Her practice uses mischievous play to create intimacy, explores the strangeness of existence, and the confusion of feelings. She draws on the deeply ingrained feminine power of transformation, where ordinary objects and moments are imbued with hidden meanings, like spells cast in plain sight.
This practice illustrates the ‘marvellous’ that André Breton spoke of, where a liberated imagination invites curious outcomes. Like one of Freud’s so-called antennae of society, Nicky is hypersensitive to the rhythms and currents that ripple beneath the surface of everyday life.
Nicky Peacock lives in the Tees Valley with a begonia, the ghosts of two cats, and a brand-new hip.
Nicky Peacock, ‘Portrait of Harriet Martineau, Mesmerised’,
Sculpture, 2024
Nicky Peacock, Detail ‘Portrait of Harriet Martineau, Mesmerised’
Nicky Peacock, Detail ‘Portrait of Harriet Martineau, Mesmerised’
Nicky Peacock, Detail ‘Portrait of Harriet Martineau, Mesmerised’
Nicky Peacock, ‘Pease & Pearls’, vinyl wall sticker
Nicky Peacock, ‘Bows 1’, mixed media
Nicky Peacock, ‘Bows 2’, mixed media
Jo Spence
“Available for divorces, funerals, illness, social injustice, scenes of domestic violence, exploration of sexuality and any joyful events”
‘How do we take a story like Cinderella out of the archives, off the bookshelves, out of the retail stores and attempt to prise out its latent class content? Its political and social uses?’ Jo Spence. A question highlighted in the ‘Fairy Tales and Photography’ exhibition of her work at the Centre for British Photography, January – May 2023.
Jo Spence,
Photograph,
by Maggie Murray, 1984,
National Portrait Gallery, London
Jo Spence,
Art in Review, 2013,
The New York Times
Jo Spence, 4 x Photographs,
‘Photo Therapy; Beautiful Lady’. 1989,
Collaboration with Rosy Martin.
Jo Spence,
Photograph by Jo Spence, 1990,
National Portrait Gallery, London
Jo Spence,
Photograph by Ann McGuiness, 1989,
National Portrait Gallery, London
Tereza Stehlíková
Artistic research, sensory perception & embodiment
Tereza Stehlíková is a Czech/UK artist and educator. She holds a PhD from the Royal College of Art, where she researched the tactile language of moving image. She works primarily in moving image and participatory performance and is also head of Visual Arts Department and Vysoká Škola Kreativní Komunikace, Prague. Tereza’s work is informed by her ongoing exploration of the role of all our senses and our embodiment in communicating meaning, often using narratives to help activate imagination and provide a framework. Beyond this, the core themes in her creative practice are built around our human relationship to landscape and place in general, while exploring how our environment can become an extension of our inner worlds. Since 2012 Tereza has been working on 4 Generations of Women. The project has resulted in more than 10 short films shot over the years, staging small family rituals involving the women in the artist’s female line. The process of performing these rituals, as well as the subsequent editing and sharing of the films has been a way of generating, recording, and processing shared experience. Another ongoing project is Ophelia in Exile. Through exploring the fictional character of Ophelia, a woman who has been quarantined in her home and now believes herself to only exist on the screen of her own computer, the work questions our over reliance on the ever-present screen and the alienation from our own bodies which this creates. In 2020 Tereza launched an online arts journal/platform Tangible Territory, featuring essays and articles by established artists/authors from the world of arts, science, philosophy, all centred around the role our senses play in creating meaning in art and life.
Tereza Stehlíková,
‘Between Jiřina and Anna’, 2015
Tereza Stehlíková,
‘Between Jiřina and Anna’, 2015
Tereza Stehlíková,
‘From my Roots’, 2020
Tereza Stehlíková,
‘From my Roots’, 2020
Ikuko Tsuchiya
My practice-based research explores ideas and methodologies of empowering individuals, and bringing awareness of dignity, humanity and diverse lives of people through my art practices with the medium of photography.
Ikuko Tsuchiya (born in Japan) is a practitioner of art-photography and teaching art in the north-east of England. She was the Jo Spence Fellow hosted by Northumbria University (2000-03). Influenced by Jo Spence’s idea of photography practice as therapy, Ikuko has been exploring the idea and practices in both art and healthcare contexts since her fellowship. ‘Theatre team’ is from the photography project ‘Images of Trust’, which was her first collaborative project with the team of Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (2000-03). It culminated with an exhibition and the publication of the book ‘Images of Trust: a year in the life of Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’ (2004). The project received prestigious awards, from Nikon Salon in Tokyo (2005) and the Combined Royal Colleges Medal from the Royal Photographic Society in London (2012).
‘Mrs. Sarah Sandison’ is from the ‘Celebrating staff diversity’ project in collaboration with the healthcare professionals from Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (2021 – ongoing). The project aims to raise awareness of diversity, equality and inclusion through photographic portraits by Ikuko with texts by the participants.
Mrs. Sarah Sandison
Children’s Community Nurse:
‘I am part of the children’s community nursing team. We provide home based treatment and support for children in the Northumbria area. This includes supporting hospital discharge and ongoing care to hopefully prevent readmission to hospital.
I work as a children’s community nurse covering the whole of Northumbria Trust area. This is a new role for me, having previously worked in CAMHS and before that on a children’s neuro rehabilitation ward. Children’s nursing is always a very varied role supporting very well children, to extremely poorly ones. The thing I love about being a children’s nurse is that children are remarkable at taking everything in their stride. Their passion for life and to overcome adversity is unique and inspirational.
I have significant hearing loss in both ears and wear aids in both. This was described to me literally as ‘old age deafness arrived early’ and I started to struggle with my hearing when I was in my early thirties. It took me a long time to accept this disability and if I am honest, sometimes I still struggle to be open about it. I even grew my hair over my ears when I first wore aids to hide them!
As a nurse, I literally couldn’t do my job without my hearing aids. I put them in first thing in the morning and everything comes to life. They enable me to hear the tiny sounds that a nurse looks out for. Obviously, the pandemic has been very difficult for the deaf community. Even with hearing aids in I struggle greatly with the use of masks. I do think, however, that this has highlighted other’s awareness of what day to day life is like for people with poor hearing; we experience this constantly without hearing aids.
I feel really lucky to be a part of a Trust that encourages inclusiveness and has lots of networks available for support regarding issues that a disability can make you vulnerable to. I wear my hearing aids proudly now.’
Ikuko Tsuchiya,
‘Mrs. Sarah Sandison’
Photograph, 2021,