Please join us for the preview of Still Moving's ‘In-tuition’, an exhibition of new work inspired by the Commons around Great Torrington.
The exhibition features sculptures, films, works on paper and found objects brought together to embrace magic as a space of intuition, connection and possibility. The title, ‘In-tuition’, describes the artists’ desire to learn, using sensitivity to nature and openness to the way that it might speak through us.
Preview: Tue 04 Apr 2023, 6:00pm
Exhibition: Tue 04 Apr 2023 - Sat 06 May 2023
The Plough Arts Center, Great Torrington, EX38 8HQ
Still Moving is an artists’ collective set up by Laura Hopes, Léonie Hampton and Martin Hampton
About the Exhibition
England is a land that has been subject to ‘capitalist sorcery’ for over 500 years; a psychic and bodily rift between people and the land resulting from the history of the Enclosures, the destruction of the Commons and the persecution of the Witches.
Great Torrington’s own history of the Commons dramatically inverts this story. An ‘area of waste called the Common’, was given to the people of Torrington in 1194. This was formalised in 1889, when the Common’s Act was presented in Parliament in ‘An Act for vesting Great Torrington in a body of Conservators’. These 365 acres of common land remain vehemently defended and remain central to the traditions and defiant identity of the town and community. The free access to the land they represent is vital to nurturing dignity, sovereignty and a magical, intuitive connection to nature.
Still Moving’s practice aims to explore these psychic and manmade boundaries, unearthing ancient and modern ways of being in the world, mysterious, open and interconnected. By paying attention to the material and spiritual aspects of land, we stand to learn from the reciprocal relationship between people, nature and commons.
Film Screening and Preview event
4th April 2023
To coincide with the opening of In-tuition, the Plough Cinema will present a free series of films made by the artists collective Still Moving. Running on loop throughout the evening of Tuesday 4th April, the cinema will be open for ‘drop in’ viewings. The preview will involve a Q and A at 7pm-7.30pm where Still Moving will be joined by some of their recent collaborators. This includes Dance Lab Collective (represented by Kerry Chappell and Pam Woods, both of University of Exeter) who will offer a short movement insight into the Kinasphere film-making process to open discussion.
The films
Kinasphere - Three dancers move between three choreographed worlds, scientific, urban and rural. There, changing environmental vernaculars entangle with the human body reminding us that we are in relation to the worlds around us and together become active agents of movement and change. Made in Collaboration with Kerry Chapell, Lizzie Swinford and Pam Woods. Funded by The Eramus+programme of the European Union (3min)
Continuous and all around us - A filmic collage of sound and image questions the ecological and sonic impact of housing developments in Pinhoe on the fridges of expanding Exeter. Made in Response to the practice of Sound artist Emma Welton. Filmed as part of Clyst Valley Regional Park's Routes for Roots project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.(6.54min)
Zenae - The film takes its cue from ancient literature on matriarchal migration into Britain, reflects upon our ecological inheritance, and draws out a series of clues found in Greek, Roman, and medieval texts, including a late medieval poem about Syrian sisters’ flight to the then unoccupied islands of Britain. The film contemplates the stories of suppressed female worlds, and asks us to consider what their presence might offer our future. Made by Islands of Women Collective (Rose Gibbs, Alice Albinia and Léonie Hampton) Music by Full of Noises. Funded by Arts Council England (16min)
Our Body is a Planet - A short film that challenges the way we think of ourselves as individual genetically prescribed entities, independent from our surroundings. Without fungi and bacteria our bodies and biosphere would not exist; we are in partnership with the microbial world. Music by Meredith Monk, made in collaboration with the MRC centre for Medical Mycology. Funded by Arts and Culture University of Exeter and Wellcome Trust. (11.09min)
Worlding - The film explores how we might enter into a different relationship with land, nature and place in order to address the climate crisis that confronts us all. Funded by Take A Part, National Lottery Heritage Fund (10.38min)
Lacuna - The Colour of Distance - The orb travels a landscape, distancing its occupant by insulating them from sound, heat, wind, while at the same time utterly controlling them. Commissioned by OSR Projects for The Weather Station II (4.55min)
Traum - The camera enters the derelict landscape of the Lee Valley, London, UK, the site of the 2012 Olympics. Cut to a complex score by Isambard Khroustaliov the film proposes a way of looking through the surface of banal things to find new and surprising territories (16min)
(Total screen time 70 min)
At other times these films are available through our website www.stillmoving.org/projects
Still Moving live research space
4th April- 21st April 2023
Still Moving will create a live research space connected to the exhibition In-tuition which will reflect our conversations and encounters in and around Torrington. Please feel welcome to interact with the objects and let us know if you have suggestions or additional offerings.
Link to article Guardian arts section
Léonie Hampton of Still Moving's exhibition Matter at Hand opened in Foto Forum, Bolzano, Italy on 31 May 2022
Léonie Hampton, A Language of Seeds,
14 January 2023 to 4 March 2023
A Language of Seeds is a series of photographs celebrating the artist Léonie Hampton's vegetable garden, family and friends responding to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery (RAMM)’s botany collection.
Zenae is a film made by in collaboration between Rose Gibbs, Alice Albinia and Léonie Hampton as the Islands of Women collective.
With Music by Full of Noises.
It takes its cue from ancient literature on matriarchal migration into Britain, reflects upon our ecological inheritance, and draws out the relationship between the work women traditionally do, caring for others, and the work of caring for the earth. It is inspired by a series of clues found in Greek, Roman, and medieval texts, including a late medieval poem about some Syrian sisters’ flight to the then unoccupied islands of Britain. The film contemplates the losses that rising sea-levels will bring, and through a focus on the natural world, seeks to find a ways of looking that promotes and protects a more nurturing approach to the land and our bodies.
Pharmakon, a new bronze sculpture for the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology by Still Moving at the University of Exeter was unveiled on 4th June 2022
We are crowdfunding to take the NO NEW WORLDS sculpture to COP26 in Glasgow in November and need your help to make it happen
Commissioned to complement the touring exhibition Seedscapes: Future Proofing Nature, Léonie Hampton’s body of work engages directly with the ecological emergency through a series of photographs that celebrate her vegetable garden, her family and friends, and the seeds in the collections at RAMM, Exeter. The exhibition is runs from 18 May to 5 September 2021. See here for more information.
Still/Moving and Survival International in partnership with Dr Stephanie Pratt and Melinda Schwakhofer, invite the artists Cannupa Hanska Luger, Candessa Tehee, Ian Kuali’i and Jules Koostachin to discuss the complexities of the 400 year Mayflower history and their individual artist practices, in a panel chaired by art historian Dr Stephanie Pratt.
When: Tuesday 1 December 2020 At: 16:30 – 18.00GMT
Free Eventbrite link: CLICK HERE
During the month of November we have created multiple spaces for indigenous voices to be AMPLIFIED. Please submit a short quote responding to: ‘Tell us what the history of the Mayflower means to you.’ By following the links below or emailing us directly on amplify@stillmoving.org these will be added to the NO NEW WORLDS tags which are written and tied to the sculpture in Plymouth UK, and posted through social media: /StillMovingCIC & @StillMovingCIC
Through the Survival International Map: https://www.survivalinternational.org/campaigns/mayflowerskill
Marial Quezada from Survival International, Sam Maltais, (Aquinnah Wampanoag), Dr Stephanie Pratt (Dakota) and Still/Moving will discuss the current campaign, #Mayflowers Kill. This conversation will introduce November’s Native American Heritage Month, and reflect on the place of NO NEW WORLDS and other artworks within commemorative programmes such as Plymouth UK’s Mayflower 400 Commemorations.
When: Friday 13 November 2020 At: 16:30 – 17:30 GMT
Free Eventbrite link:https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/stillmoving-in-conversation-dr-stephanie-pratt-survival-international-tickets-125853911437
Throughout the duration of Speedwell's installation on Mount Batten Breakwater a series of 'in conversations' will be held between Still/Moving and invited speakers to discuss some of the themes raised by the project. The talks will be live-streamed online. Click here for a full list
Next up: Still/Moving IN CONVERSATION: 'Connections' with Marianne Brown 16.10.2020 @ 13.00
hold me beside you is a unique installation by Still/Moving for this year's Plymouth Art Weekender: 24 -27 September 2020.
The 2-metre distanced illuminated words respond to the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. The site-specific installation explores the tension of proximity and risk in the physical structure of the Plymouth Citadel’s former gunpowder store. Originally created for The Box's 'State of Emergency' micro commission the words have been reconfigured to magnify our state of isolation and our dependence: our need to keep distanced, coupled with our longing for interconnectedness, revealing a shared vulnerability in the face of the unknown workings of the virus.
The work hangs on the north wall of Duttons Cafe, located above Elphinstone carpark which is one of the best places to see Still/Moving's other project Speedwell, on the Mount Batten Breakwater.
Speedwell is exploring the idea of 'no new worlds'.
For the settlers on the Mayflower who felt they were sailing to a new world, it was a world that had been inhabited for many thousands of years by indigenous peoples who were greatly impacted by the arrival of the Mayflower and subsequent ships that followed.
We wanted to challenge that idea and to uncover previously overlooked stories of the Mayflower sailing but also to remind people that we only have this world and we need to look after it.
Come and add your voice to the structure either by filling in a tag with one of our volunteers or by adding your voice on our text and audio link
Speedwell's Poignant Message - Plymouth Herald
Re-Informed on the Mayflower 400 website.
Speedwell, a large scale light installation funded by Plymouth Culture and the Arts Council, will open on Plymouth's Mount Batten Breakwater at dusk on 4th September 2020. Currently under construction it can be clearly seen growing on the horizon from the Hoe and the Barbican. See Speedwell Project page for more info.
Still Moving have been awarded a State of Emergency Commission by The Box, Plymouth's new museum, art gallery and cultural centre. The project titled 'touch' explores the two metre distance of safety forced under the pandemic regulations, a distance which paradoxically shows care through remoteness while enforcing isolation, yet in cases of coercion, hides from view those subject to a cruelty of touch.
The work explores these spaces, navigating from the distance of the horizon to the proximity of the home; the local. Moving through levels of intimacy and forms of touch from the caress of a lover, the lifting of a child to sharing a companionable proximity, the phrases ‘HOLD ME’, ‘TOUCH ME’, ‘BESIDE ME’ will be created using a low voltage LED technology.
The Box will open to the general public on Tuesday 29 September
https://www.theboxplymouth.com/state-of-emergency-micro-commissions/still-moving
Still/Moving's co-founder Leonie Hampton new commission from RAMM, will explore the Exeter museum’s collection of seeds and herbarium sheets in dialogue with her own photographs of seed experiments, the garden and family. Creating a ‘story about love, growth, family and the archaic wisdom of plants’ the new artwork will place Hampton’s photographs of living and growing plants alongside that of the collected, dried seeds in the museum.
See: RAMM Museum for more info
The nine phrases that light up to create Speedwell are selected at random in realtime by a custom made control system. The bespoke mini computer was designed and constructed by Neon Circus (specialist lighting designers working with artists including Martin Creed, Jenny Holzer, and Tim Etchells)
As daylight begins to fade at dusk, the system gradually dims the lights to a level set to be in balance with the darkness of nighttime.
