First Fridays happen on the first Friday of every month, a gathering place for artists or anyone interested in the arts, an opportunity to share ideas, knowledge and art. We’re still meeting virtually (on Zoom). Perhaps we’ll start to nudge back towards some in-person meetings soon although we don’t really feel this feels right just yet.
First Fridays are online, begin at 13.00 GMT/UTC+0 and last for an hour. The link to join will be on this page about a week before.
Our guests for March 2022 are Anna Goodchild, MUD Collective and Nicola Coe. More details to follow…
[The image above is taken from Anna’s 1950+66 Anthropocene Devon series.]
First Friday session
Anna Goodchild
I am based in South Devon and use photography, poetry and dye painting to create images. My approach to my work is experimental, drawing inspiration from many different sources, and is guided by theories on New Materialisms, because I realise that the relationship of people to all that is around us, be it material or digital, has to change.
Under the heading of Anthropocene Devon, the project I am sharing on 4th March reflects the effects I, and others like me, have on our environment. The images are all taken from Google Earth of the places I visit the most in Devon and so I must share the culpability of the effects of such visits. It is my intention in 2026, 10 years after these images were developed, to see if anything has changed. I shall use ‘share screen’ to show my website housing this collection.
MUD Collective
MUD Collective is a Geology-Art-Sound research collective based in Iraq, France and the UK. We are a group of multidisciplinary artists (including a sedimentologist). In our coming together we fuse geological and artistic approaches to reveal alternative perspectives and new knowledges. Most recently, through our work, we are asking ‘how can we break through metaphor to experience the common energies between us and the earth?’ For more about MUD Collective and the film ‘Mesopotamian Mud: the third walk’ go to https://ajourneythroughvoiceandvessel.wordpress.com/
Here are some links to our work:
https://ajourneythroughvoiceandvessel.wordpress.com/ (OUR WEBSITE)
https://soundcloud.com/mudcollective/mesopotamian-mud-the-third-walk (AUDIO WALK)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnc3Jtt-UP0 (FILM)
Nicola Coe
Nicola says:
‘I make art with nature about nature. I make all my work in the studio but seem to do all my thinking outside in the landscape. I notice, I collect natural finds and I write down my creative ideas in my mind.
Working in tune with the seasons is particularly important to me, and my subjects often change with those natural finds available at the time of year present.
I find my creative ideas forming when perhaps I am handling the shape of a birds nest or finding a feather out whilst walking the dogs, along with watching the weather and seasons change throughout the year.
Over the past years I have become more and more concerned with conservation, even on a simple everyday level such as maintenance of our domestic hedges for nesting birds. I feel very strongly that my work is heading in a direction that may be able to highlight local and global issues with native species and habitat loss. It is part of my own everyday life, both in the garden and home and in my studio practice.
I work with the most natural and environmentally conscious mediums I can find or make, these include, ethically foraged materials, plant based inks and rainwater
I have a deep love of nature and fear how much of our natural world we are losing.
I have found a way to make art that feels authentic to those beliefs .‘
Nicola lives in Suffolk, England with her artist husband, two dogs, a cat and a lot of chickens.
Here is the unedited conversation with Richard Povall.