Immersive Co-Creation & Shared Experience:
My artistic vision and interest centre on immersive experiences that foster deep engagement and a sense of shared presence through collaborative creation, performance, and production—a process exemplified in the selected videos, where I was involved as a co-creator, maker, performer, and producer.
My work prioritises accessible and safe sensory-rich environments that seek to collapse the boundaries and divisions, all still too common, between artist, performers and audience or more accurately 'participants' who truly ARE, in that moment, co-creators.
The Water Banquet video edit was part of Aqua Impura series was a ‘foodless meal’ served over three hours to an audience of eighteen guests gathered at the table. The Water Banquet went on to form part of the UK exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial in 2007 and at the V&A, London, 2008.
Guests were given the Water Banquet menu; guests had a choice of 3 aural experiential and/or visual dishes for each course which were served by UMan-Zoo co-creators/waiters. For each course a key narrative moments of beginnings (8 year old child with a grandparent figure), middles (30 something couple toiling a field of forks in the rain whilst a wedding of 2 guests was being celebrated through dance and cheering by the guests around the table), and endings (70 something contemplating a life lived) before a final toast where water was set on fire.
Aqua Impura Installation - Aberystwyth The original manifestation of 'The Water Banquet', created by Richard Downing and U-Man Zoo. A 'performed installation' in public space, with the table set and cleared in a series of changing presences over a duration of three days.
The Parcel video edit features an experiential immersive and participatory performance that changed from an installation during the day to a live performance at night. The installation included over 1,000 tea-stained hessian sacks arranged on a two-tier scaffolding structure. In this space, 25 guests /participants explored the themes of lost communications by divining the stories behind parcels that were sent but never reached their intended recipients. With the assistance of postal sorting office workers (U Man-Zoo company members), participants discussed and considered the significance of (lost) communication and connection of the parcels they chose in the exhibition installation space.
Supporting Creative Visions
Over 30+ years I have worked extensively as a collaborator, a production manager, festival organiser, and coordinator for various companies and projects for UK and internationally based artists and companies. This involved managing immersive experiential and site-specific events in diverse challenging locations and environments in a variety of roles to help realise artistic visions.
Artes Mundi 10 (Project Manager of Public Programmes): Project managed and co devised the public engagement program across five Welsh venues (Cardiff, Swansea, Newtown, Llandudno), engaging multiple diverse community groups (including newly arrived families in Wales, LGBTQ+ ballroom community, art in the community groups etc...). Responsibilities included interviewing and recording community members for AM10 podcast series, assisting production of labels written by community groups prominently displayed along side the art work, artist-led workshops, and community events celebrating the exhibited works.
Aberetwm (May 2023): Engagement and Access Producer for a 5-day community-led live event directed by Marc Rees.
National Theatre Wales, Cost of Living (Feb-Mar 2023): Access coordination for cast, crew, and audience.
Little Wander Comedy Festival (Machynlleth & Aberystwyth): since 2022 ongoing accessibility consultancy and access manager and coordinator during festivals
Marrakech International Storytelling Festival (February 2023) Festival coordinator supporting local team to manage the performances for over 100 international and Moroccan artists, 100 volunteers, and 100 school workshops for a 10 day festival.
Galwad (June-Nov 2022): Engagement Producer and Access & Inclusion Coordinator.
2001-2017 Freelance producer and touring manager, performer and site specific coordinator for multiple companies and initiatives
Centre For Performance Research (2001-2008) Festival and Production Coordinator and Project Manager, I handled all incoming and outgoing performances and events which worked nationally across a range of disciplines that included dance and theatre, installation and performance, music and multimedia projects, site specific and landscape-based events. It worked nationally and internationally and with Wales or Uk and internationally based artists.
2001-2014 Freelance production manager on site specific projects French and UK based companies
Freelance Production Management (2001-2004 & late 90s): Managed site-specific projects (France and UK) and worked as an artist liaison, project coordinator, and assistant director on international music and theatre festivals and short/medium feature films (Marseille & Paris).
In development: Food, Feasts and Belonging - A serving of Welsh Bouillabaisse
This trans-media project envisions a series of immersive, participatory, and accessible performances to Deaf, disabled, and neurodiverse people. Each performance will centre on unique banquets where participants share their stories through food and cross-art forms, explore their identities, define and platform their own versions of belonging. These performances aim to foster reflection and inspire visions for more inclusive, diverse and divergent futures.
A Serving of Welsh Bouillabaisse, my proposed inaugural performance, will serve as a pilot project. Bouillabaisse, deeply connected to my Marseillais heritage, also holds personal significance: my mother made it for my birthdays and served it to my assembled tribe of 30+ family guests until Alzheimer's ended that.
This performance will feature explorations of (not) belonging, evoke series of ruptures and repairs, reflecting my experiences as a neurodiverse, deaf individual, a member of a family with five consecutive generations living in countries other than where they were born and raised, the daughter of a woman with Alzheimer's, and the mother of a transgender son. It will be a personal reconciliation with my life and in post-Brexit Wales, culminating in a celebratory French-Welsh wedding disco.
The intention is for this pilot performance (s) to inform the making, delivery and development of future projects that centre on platforming the perspectives and stories of other minoritised individuals or groups.
Note: Funding is currently being sought to realise this vision.
