Melanie Stidolph

Telling stories through photography with Melanie Stidolph

Make It Better CIC

Wednesday 25th February 10.00 – 12.00

Borlase Smart room, Porthmeor Studios, St Ives

Join artist photographer Melanie Stidolph for this engaging and inspiring session where we will create shared stories through photography.

Melanie will guide us as we read and choose aspects of a narrative to respond to and seek out images that relate to this. Such as the story of Mr Ellis’s ship ‘Truelove’ – which was built from floorboards in 1906 and moved to the sea’s edge in Penzance (never to leave it).

We will then gather to share our photographs and findings, editing them together to form the group’s story. At the end of the session, we will present the whole story.

Bring your phone or camera or please let us know if you would like to use a tablet that we Mitber can provide.

Tickets (£5) available here: Eventbrite

In May last year I was invited by artist Alice Mahoney to document participatory walks around Camborne as part of her project Water Bodies. The project explores the relationships between water, landscape, and community.

The walks traced speculative water cycles, from streams and mermaid carvings to vanished holy wells and underground watercourses. As part of sharing the outcomes so far, my photographs and those by Annemarie Bala are on display with a new map of routes on The Ramp Wall at The Exchange, Penzance until 25 April 2026.

Further info: Newlyn Art Gallery

Click to play audio (recorded in studio) – reading of my new reflective text / imaginary dialogue – begun on the shores of Loch Long and the plateaus of Scotland during my Cove Park X Creative Kernow Associates residency in March this year. This work draws on ‘A Stone Woman’ by AS Byatt and ‘I dream of dead people’ by Rosalind Belben.

5 – 7 December 2025

A studio wide event. Over 30 artists

One weekend only, free and open to all

Porthmeor Studios

Friday 5th December, 5-9pm

Saturday 6th December, 11am – 2pm

Back Road West, St Ives TR26 1NG

Trewarveneth Studios

Saturday 6 December, 1pm – 4pm

Sunday 7 December, 12pm – 5pm

Trewarveneth Street, Newlyn TR18 5JQ

Porthmeor & Trewarveneth studio holders will open their studios with invited artists to coincide with openings at Tate St Ives and Newlyn Gallery & The Exchange. I’ve invited the wonderful Mandy Lee Jandrell to show with me at my studio.

Timings above and more details coming soon – www.bsjwtrust.co.uk.

Poster designed by Simon Bayliss.

Thank you to curator Chris Bailkoski for featuring our collaborative residency and exhibition at Auction House in the current Engage Journal 48 in his article – ‘Artist residencies as essential to creative practice: a proposition’.

A strong defence of delicate things was at Auction House from 23 to 27 June 2021

Anna Lucas, Melanie Stidolph and Alice Walton

The installation brought together work from our practice across film, photography and found image, staged within a provisional physical structure. The work was shaped through a shared interest in collaborative looking; working with images that fell loosely within categories of inside & outside, women in the studio, building materials, water, rocks and limbs.

Mid-way through developing the project an image of the artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham became our anchor, influencing our selection and the form of the installation structure.

With many thanks to Auction House for the invitation to be part of their programme and special thanks to Liam Jolly who always expands the possibilities held in a space. Thank you to Rob Airey, Director, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust both for the kind image permission and generous financial support of the exhibition. And thank you to Jessica Akerman for the intel!

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