A visual artist working with people and places, whose individual and participatory practices generate practice-led research into the value of artful, embodied and place-based learning.
I am a visual artist based in Wiltshire, UK, working with people and places.
I research different places through walking/cycling, collecting and recording, and I reflect on my experiences through making. This individual side of my practice is interwoven with participatory projects, training and consultancy.
The individual and the participatory sides of my practice each feed into and inform the other, generating a body of practice-led research into the value of artful, embodied and situated (place-based) learning, and their benefits for individual, community and ecological wellbeing.
Underpinning all areas of my practice is a belief in the urgent need to develop new ways of seeing and being with the world, in this time of climate breakdown and ecological collapse.
In my individual work I use a variety of media, choosing those of relevance to the subject matter, from 'natural' and recycled materials, gathered locally, to photographs, text and video. The resulting artwork may take the form of small hand-held objects, wearable artwork, freestanding sculpture or large site-specific installations.
I have carried out residencies and commissions for a number of arts, heritage and environmental organisations including 5x5x5=creativity and The Hampshire Cultural Trust, and curated exhibitions including The Art of Outdoor Learning at MK Gallery following my residency there in 2016/17 and Making Memories (an early years project engaging with a city centre community garden) at Salisbury Art Centre.
I provide professional development for artists and educators in schools, arts and heritage organisations and have facilitated community consultation projects for organisations including English Heritage and National Trust. I’ve worked as a visiting lecturer at a number of universities, including with student teachers, medical students and doctoral candidates researching artful approaches to facilitating organisational change.
Creative Showcase James has contributed a piece to our Creative Showcase, an evolving collection of new and recent works from our members. Drawing on Water is a short video tour of an exhibition where he brought together artworks that emerged out of the Queer River arts-based research project he set up in 2020, using an audiovisual installation and his 'Walking Pages' to look at his individual, embodied relationship with a range of local wetlands.
James's ClimateCultures posts
Queer River and Creative Engagements with Ecologies of Place
A Queer Path to Wellbeing