Place Portrait Conversation

Place Portrait is an engagement commission by Anna Haydock-Wilson, developed over one year in collaboration with Creative Youth Network alumni Caitlin Dawkes, Holly Humphries, Ryan Convery-Moroney and Tsipora St. Clair Knights.

The work is a multimedia installation that examines the complexity of a specific area, as well as how people experience and perceive different places. Central to the commission is an installation consisting of a wooden structure that evokes the masts, cranes and scaffolding that dominate Spike Island’s skyline. The structure is surrounded by photographic portraits with QR codes linking to video portraits, and an audio work of recordings taken in and around Spike Island completes the installation. The work invites us to connect with our locality and to re-think our neighbourhoods.

The project was commissioned by Spike Island as part of the West of England Visual Arts Alliance programme. Here, the artists reflect on the process of creating and producing the new work and exhibition.

VASW
The exhibition Place Portrait was developed from an engagement commission supported by the West of England Visual Arts Alliance programme through Creative Youth Network. Could you tell us about your work and how you became involved in the project?

Holly Humphries
The opportunity came through Creative Youth Network. We had to write an application expressing our interest in the project, and had an interview which was good - quite laid back. I just wanted to be part of it, it just sounded really cool.

I paint mostly. I did lots of painting at University and I still do. It translated quite well and we did a painting workshop at Spike Island during the project which was fun.

Ryan Convery-Moroney
The title got me the most, Place Portraits; the thing that I'm interested in mostly with my work is portraits, and spaces, places. My background and photography work is very much about how spaces make you feel, so that was really a big, “Hell yeah” - it feels like my practice within photography is exactly that.

Tsipora St. Clair Knights
My background is in dance, and my practice combines movement with film and poetry as well. For me, I’m just interested in trying any art form, I like mixing and matching. I wasn't really coming in with an expectation to just focus on movement.

Caitlin Dawkes
A month before this project, I was on CYN’s Creative Futures programme, which is how I found out about the Engagement Fellowship. I wanted to do the project as ‘place’ is something that I have personally been thinking about more. I often work with tactile materials, creating soft interactive sculptures.

Anna Haydock-Wilson
I applied for the Engagement Commission with Place Portrait already proposed, so we were able to hit the ground running; everybody knew what the project was before we came together and had already expressed their relationship or their interest in working with place in their applications.

VASW
For the work, you explored Spike Island’s neighbourhood and the work includes interviews with local characters, sound, still and moving images, and found, reused and newly created materials. How did you find the process of coming together and creating work as a group?

Ryan
I've really enjoyed everyone getting together, it's nice to have people from different creative disciplines. I get very stuck in photography, so it's good to be with people that don't work in the same way.

Being together physically, rather than virtually, really helped shape what we were doing. No one person dominated what was going to happen or how it was going to be dealt with, everyone worked individually and together in such a harmonious way. Sometimes someone did what they’re interested in in their practice, but we all branched out and looked at different ways to make work, which shows in the exhibition.

Anna wanted everyone to work together and made it really open - it was quite easy to talk through ideas, whether it was going to work for the exhibition or not. The process gave us time and didn’t rush things, and she invited every type of work.

We all contributed equally to everything, there was no hierarchy. It was never one person's idea over another person's idea, which I thought was really great, especially in a group setting where we all have different things that we want to do.

Tsipora
I've never worked collaboratively with people from different art forms, so that was really exciting. You never know how it's going to work with people when you come from different angles, but from the first session we really got on well and became friends. It didn't feel like work for me, every time I came to Bristol it was enjoyable and fun - a space for me to just explore, be creative. I never felt like any idea was going to be shut down. And the year went by really quickly, I wish we had more time.

Caitlin
I enjoyed working with the group, it was a comfortable and welcoming space to explore ideas and focus on being creative. Anna was really good at fostering a positive and open space, where all ideas were embraced which I think is clear in the final installation.

The collaboration seemed to extend beyond the group of us to the local community around Spike Island through the conversations with local residents and businesses. It was really beneficial to meet some of the studio artists in the building through the different sessions that Anna organised. We had an interesting session with Veronica Vickery, where she talked about the inspiration behind her practice and the practical materials that she uses - the River Avon mud to make clay, which we had a play with. We also had a collaborative painting session from Luke Palmer and a sound workshop with Liz Purnell.

Anna
We learned from each other too. We went out together with cameras and minutely documented the neighbourhood. We interviewed quite a few local people, and Ryan taught us how to use his medium format film camera, which was very exciting. We worked together with words, and Caitlin and I got a bit obsessed with collecting local things from around the area, picking them up and coating them in resin. I personally learned from everybody, some new techniques and creative practices.

VASW
How did you then go about translating that process of going out and gathering, making and learning and working together as a group into the gallery space?

Anna
We had the Residency Studio at Spike so had a big space to experiment in. Quite early on we decided we wanted to use the gallery as another kind of ‘local space’, and it was very much in my vision to make a site specific installation - to explore the height of the room and the skylight as a way to bring the outside into the space.

For Spike Open Studios, we mocked up an installation in the Residency space; that made it easier to build the physical piece so we didn't have a blank canvas when we were planning the exhibition. Then we added the other elements - video, audio and photography.

Ryan
The central structure felt like the point that everything worked around, a basis of the exhibition. If we were to deconstruct how the exhibition came together, how we incorporated sound, installation, and photography together, actually it did work just from this one structure, we worked outwards from that.

Holly
The central structure was like a boat and really related to Spike, it was literally from the area and we added figurative things like the sail or the ropes we made. They were physical but also metaphorical and had loads of connotations.

It was good to go for the walk on the first day, where we just looked at things that we wanted to take from the area and bring into the exhibition. The photos also gave us a nice, quite literal view of the area, with the real textures of the place.

Tsipora
Caitlin and I took our own pictures of what drew us to the area. And again, with Anna being so open, when Holly said she wanted to paint on a sail, it was “okay, we can do that”.

Caitlin
I think the whole project came together naturally. It had a natural flow to it as the structure progressed throughout the year, adding different elements as we went. This approach worked quite well. We knew early on what themes and ideas interested us the most about the area. For me, I was instantly inspired by the ropes around the harbour on our first day of wandering - I knew I wanted to explore that.

Holly
It was ambitious as well, we were all open to each other's ideas and then pushed each other's ideas further and added or refined them.

VASW
There are clear elements, like the sail, where individually you've brought something quite specific to the installation, but it feels like a very collaborative process. Has the process of working together and creating work in relation to an idea of portraiture or site, changed or had an impact on your thinking and practice?

Ryan
I’ve started doing more video and incorporating sound. I've been predominantly a stills photographer, and didn't really branch out into bringing different ways of documenting together in such a way, it's expanded my understanding of how work can be made. I recently made a video where it almost felt like I was interviewing myself, and I've done a voiceover, which is not something that I would have done prior to this project.

The way that I look at place now is much broader than just looking at what's visually there, which is definitely an expansion of this project. It just goes to show that you don't have to have one specific idea and just run with that, and only have one way of looking at things.

Anna
Would you collaborate again, would you make more work about place?

Holly
It was good to do the collaborative work, it definitely taught me to let go of ownership. I had a vision of how it was going to be and it turned out completely different, which was actually way more exciting. I do want to do more collaborative work, it's more exciting, sociable and unpredictable.

It's good to have a specific site because then you have to really research that area, and everyone has their own interpretation. For Place Portrait, we had a big area with so much history that we could refer to, I enjoy that - reinterpreting into something contemporary. It was good that we didn't all live in Bristol too, to have people from outside look in.

Caitlin
It was nice to see something that I've made in a space like Spike, which has given me a boost of

inspiration to keep going. I enjoyed working collaboratively, I think I would definitely collaborate again in the future - working together to build something that expands each other’s practice. After graduation, you have this idea that you have to do it all by yourself, but the past year has shown me that you don't have to be on your own to achieve things.

Anna
Tsipora, you said that you would be quite into the idea of making a film. Have you thought any more about that?

Tsipora
I really like editing, so I wanted to capture what we've done to have documentation that uses the different elements - photos of the exhibition, soundscape and portraits. We'd all have something we can use in the future to share examples of work.

Working collaboratively has made me think about socially engaged work as a practice, it’s something I'm drawn to, but I didn't know how it would be possible. To actually have that as a base to work from is really interesting for me. Also the conversations that we've had about architecture and site have made me look around my area more, take pictures. I got a place on a photography fellowship, so I'll be starting that in a few weeks which is really exciting.

Anna
My practice is generally collaborative and I work with lots of different artists, but I would work with any of you again. I found you to be really great collaborators, really thoughtful and you gave each other space. You picked up on each other's ideas really well. I very much felt like the work came from all of us, which was a kind of hard balance for me - I didn't want to drive it to an extent where you didn't feel that it was yours as well. I think you all did brilliantly, it was a joy to work with you.

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Anna Haydock-Wilson
Anna Haydock-Wilson connects people through participatory activities to encourage discussion and action around shifting societal status quos. Her activities have engaged people from diverse communities across London and in the South West. Collaborative initiatives include Little Fish Films, Art under the Flyover, Peaceful Portway, Art within the Cracks and acts of (in)visible repair. Haydock-Wilson studied fine art and independent filmmaking in London, and recent exhibitions include Inhabited Spaces (2019), Centre of Gravity (2020) and Make Gallery Exeter (2021).

Caitlin Dawkes
Caitlin Dawkes is an artist who is interested in exploring the (dis)comforting affect of art objects through tactile sculpture. Dawkes uses soft materials to create exaggeratingly tactile objects that aim to challenge traditional interactions with art through haptic engagement. Dawkes studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, UAL (2022) and recent exhibitions include Raid R X Horse Hospital, Horse Hospital (2022) and We Don’t Have All The Answers, The Station (2022).

Holly Humphries
Holly Humphries is a Bristol-based artist who works with the themes of consumption and desire. Hinting at ‘you are what you eat’, Humphries’ work analyses the parallels of our literal, visceral, sensual selves, to food, packaging, and advertising. Working across painting, installation and sculpture, she tempts physical and tangible sensations. She is part of East Bristol Contemporary and has exhibited at The Station (2022), St Anne’s House (2023) and The Arts Mansion (2023).

Ryan Convery-Moroney
Ryan Convery-Moroney is a photographer and documentarist. He is interested in architecture, social structure, psychogeography and the multifaceted use of urban space and planning. In his work, Convery-Moroney explores how we observe, feel, act and behave in space depending on our individual or collective knowledge, intentions or interests.

Tsipora St. Clair Knights
Tsipora St. Clair Knights is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the complexities of identity through movement, film and spoken word. She studied dance at Bath Spa and has participated in various programmes including Old Vic Backstage A Number (2021-2022) and 100 Agents of Change Residency with In Place of War (2021). She is a Board Member of Purple Moon Drama and Rising Arts Agency.