Certain things leave, others stay and new things arrive

2021

Certain things leave, others stay, and new things arrive is a video installation created in collaboration with Rebecca Stapleford during a six month residency at the Three Storeys creative venue in Nailsworth in 2021. At that time, the building was in a process of deconstruction and renovation, having previously hosted The Comrades Club for ex-servicemen and, before that, the Nailsworth Brewery. Due to lockdown, building work was suspended, and we were able to document a moment in time in the life of the building – almost like time stopping on the inhalation of a breath, before it could shift once again and breathe out.

We used movement to explore and research the space, and as a means to get out of the head and into the body, sensing into this empty space which was, in fact, full. The video shows two perspectives simultaneously, following our gazes and interactions as we investigate the layers of history, materiality, and traces of lived experience exposed in the space. Our aim was not to grasp or pin down exactly what had happened within the building. Instead, I see the work as being about acknowledging the impossibility of ever being able to completely document this ‘moment’.  Memory slips away, changes in hindsight, and is different for every person involved, existing in fragments that can never fully be pieced back together.