Talk: 17 May – CKA x Cove Park Residency

On Saturday 17 May at 11am, I’ll be talking with the brilliant D Ferrett following my time on the first Cove Park x CKA residency in Scotland. With grateful thanks to D, and to the support from CKA and Cove Park for developing the residency and selecting me. Listing and booking link below, hosted in my studio in Porthmeor Studios, St Ives.

The talk will reflect on time spent in a landscape distinct from Cornwall; providing space and connection points for new work. Melanie will be in conversation with D Ferrett, taking as their starting point their shared attraction to the place stones have in rural ritual and as way finders and entry points into the imaginary.

About Melanie Stidolph

Melanie Stidolph is an artist based at Porthmeor Studios, St Ives. Her work finds a visual language for grief and absence while holding space for desire. She is a current ACE DYCP grant recipient, recently completed a commission with Hospital Rooms and partnered with Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange to realise the ACE funded project ‘The next dawn, the next spring’.

About D Ferrett

D Ferrett is a cultural theorist working at the intersection of feminist sound studies and ecocriticism. Her work explores how sound and listening can help us understand the entanglements between violence against women and environmental crisis. She is the author of Dark Sound: Feminine Voices in Sonic Shadow (Bloomsbury 2020), and her current project, ‘Quantum Listening to the Elemental Imaginary of Dark Kernow’, examines ritual, voice and the more-than-human in response to the binary of fertility and barrenness.

Pricing

This event is free for members of Creative Kernow Associates. CKA members can find their code to book a free ticket on their members portal at https://associates.creativekernow.org.uk/my-account/. There is a small fee of £5 for non-members, just to cover costs as the event is funded through membership fees.

Creative Kernow Associates membership starts at £5/month: associates.creativekernow.org.uk/membership.

Cancellation

Tickets cancelled before more than 7 days before the event will be fully refunded.

Tickets cancelled within 7 days of the event will be partially refunded (50%) and tickets cancelled within 24 hours of the event will not be refunded.

Capacity

There is a maximum of 20 spaces at this event.

Accessibility

Melanie’s studio has level access.

Please contact associates@creativekernow.org.uk if you have any questions.

About Creative Kernow Associates

This talk is part of the programme of events for members of Creative Kernow Associates, a new membership programme for the creative and culture sectors in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, and a legacy of Creative Kernow’s hugely successful EU-funded Cultivator programme. Members have access to exclusive opportunities, an extensive selection of resources, 1-to-1 support, a tailored programme of workshops and events, and special benefits offered by partner organisations.

Find out more: associates.creativekernow.org.uk

Image: Cove Park residency space

Location

Studio 11, Porthmeor Studios, St Ives, TR26 1NG

Arts Council England – DYCP grant

Colour photograph of two boys in swimming shorts sunbathing on rocks.

So pleased (and its such fantastic timing!) that I have been awarded an Arts Council England – Develop Your Creative Practice grant.

The funding will support me acquiring new skills in my practice to develop elements for the photo series ‘Last Summer’ and begin work on a new film project. I will be working with artist and curator Hannah Rose to explore future ambitions and further develop my studio at Porthmeor as a production and hosting space.

Huge thank yous to Hannah Rose for her access support to develop and write the application and to Anna Testar, Senior Curator, Hospital Rooms for her wonderful letter of support. 

CKA x Cove Park Residency

📣 A huge thank you to @creativekernowassociates and @cove_park!

// We are delighted to announce that Melanie Stidolph has been selected for the first Creative Kernow Associates residency at Cove Park. Melanie will spend two weeks living and working on the 50-acre site overlooking Loch Long and the Firth of Clyde in March 2025, a period which marks the beginning of a year-long sabbatical to focus on her practice.

Melanie’s work is rooted in photography, exploring her relationship to grief and longing in relation to childlessness. Her photos pay attention to, and are in response to, slight changes of light, movement and the interaction of humans with the landscape. Recently her practice has expanded to incorporate working with others, and to bring the voice to the landscape as the trigger to change – literal and emotional. She is looking to start expanding this work on the voice during her time at Cove Park, developing scripts to bring an imaginative dimension to a practice that is built on a quiet observation of the real.//

This is a beautiful beginning to a year’s sabbatical to focus on my practice. 🙌 Can’t wait to be Lochside. 💙

Creative Kernow Associates

Cove Park

In Other Words feature

Photograph of woman with camera in the sea.

Thank you to Rosalyn Scott for the invitation to be part of her important online project In Other Words.

Featuring interviews with authors and poets who identify as either childless or childfree (as well as those who lie somewhere in between or prefer not to label themselves), we hear about their work, inspiration and lives. The discussions also cover the representation of non-parents in literature, and how childless or childfree writers and readers can be better represented by the wider publishing world.

Rosalyn runs the ‘NoMo’ book club – highlighting books that feature realistic narratives around this experience – find it on instagram here – NoMo Book Club. *NoMo is a term created by the childless advocate Jody Day in 2012 – it is used to describe anyone who identifies as a non-mother.

I’m in Group 4 of her interview series, with some wonderful and influential writers (Rosalyn has kindly stretched the definition to include my work and the photo book Endless Reproduction). Launches on 19 October online here – In Other Words.

Picturing the Unseen – MAC, Birmingham

Photograph of an arm lying on rocks

Helen Acklam, Finding a Place, 2023

🎨 MAC’s Symposium: Picturing The Unseen – Grief & labour in and out of motherhood

Thu 12 Sep 2024

This event addressed experiences of struggling to conceive, (in)fertility, being childless not by choice, maternal grief and caring for chronically ill children, as part of the Acts of Creation exhibition programme.

The day was developed with Sally Butcher and Hettie Judah, honoured to work with you both, thank you Hettie for the invitation. This day was partly inspired by the (M)otherhood: Art & Life event at Tate St Ives last year, supported and developed with The Paul Mellon Centre.

Speakers:

Elina Brotherus, Sally Butcher, Jessa Fairbrother, El Morgan, Trish Morrissey, Holly Slingsby, Helen Acklam, Sofie Layton, Louise Ashcroft, Buki Hannaway, Alexandrina Hemsley, Victoria Robinson, Hettie Judah.

There was power conjured up in the room. I was so moved, lifted and validated by the speakers and their work. This coming together, across life experiences, to acknowledge the whole, felt important, a marker. Thank you to our wonderful, warm audience who held, heard and shared.

Thank you to Roma Piotrowska, Chris and Deborah Kermode at MAC, Birmingham for giving unquestioned institutional support and making it all run so smoothly. Thank you to Sally and Hettie for this sensitive work, approached with compassion, expansive thinking and warmth and attention to the experience of others. Thank you to everyone who came and supported and shared at this event. It felt important, a marker in these conversations.

We missed you Dr Pragya Agarwal, but as Hettie said, we have your books, hope to see you soon. Looking forward to Hayley Frances summing up the day in poetry.

Still, Held – Hospital Rooms commission

Photograph of a room with pink and blue walls, pink lounger and photographs of paper flowers falling in the air, with hands below.

Proud of this commission made with the amazing Hospital Rooms team, patients and staff. There’s also a beautiful publication sharing all the work 📖💙, including an essay by Martin Holman and photographs by Oliver Udy.

Installation shots and video of the project by Rachael Jones shared at Newlyn & The Exchange gallery 9 August – 28 September 2024.

・・・
Still, held, 2024 is a photographic installation created by Melanie Stidolph for the female lounge on Carbis Ward in Redruth. Hand-made paper flowers, created by service users, staff and members of the public with lived exper­ience of mental health services during workshops on the ward and at IntoBodmin, were thrown into the air and photographed using specialist equip­ment. The resulting images, showing the flowers coming together in mid-air, represent the gathering of people which surrounded their creation and which defines the room in which they are now installed.⁠

‘I wanted to make a flower garden for service users that would adorn the walls of Carbis Ward and represent the time we spent together. The final photographs sit on a painted backdrop which softly fades from pink to blue, referencing Cornish skies. They show flowers suspended in mid-air and hands below – releasing, or ready to hold.’ – Melanie Stidolph⁠

For more info and images visit – Hospital Rooms

Submerged Bodies exhibition

Submerged Bodies – Ashanti Hare, Tëan Roberts, Melanie Stidolph

Curated by Isla McGregor-Smith, Ashleigh Sirs an Sabrina Sudol – MA Curation students, University of Exeter. 7-16 June 2024.

Building upon the ideas and theories of Hydrofeminism put forth by Astrida Neimanis, who argues that we are all bodies of water inextricably connected to the natural world, Submerged Bodies: Mythical Reflections in South West Waters will explore the relationship between the artist’s body and water, whilst considering the myths that exist around gender and water. In the global context of environmental disaster, it is now, more than ever, important to re-learn how we can connect our bodies with nature and exist on our planet.

https://foreignbodies.art/

Conference: Picturing the unseen

Three years ago I posted this brilliant image by Elina Brotherus to share an article by Hettie Judah Why is it so hard to talk about fertility?. Artist Sally Butcher wrote ‘Thanks for sharing this ❤️’.

So pleased and uplifted to be co-programming with Hettie, Sally and MAC curator Roma Piotrowska this event around Hettie’s major touring exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood. Thank you to Hettie for the invitation.

Picturing the unseen: Grief and labour in and out of motherhood
Thursday 12 September 2024
MAC, Birmingham

Tickets now on sale (Pay what you can) on MAC site.

Join us for a symposium addressing experiences of (m)otherhood including; struggling to conceive, infertility, being childless not by choice, maternal grief and caring for chronically ill children.

Held in the context of the major exhibition ‘Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood’, this day-long event will feature presentations by artists, writers and art historians sharing their research and personal work around these subjects. This event is open to all.

The full programme will be released soon.

Image: ‘Carpe Fucking Diem’ by Elina Brotherus

New studio – Porthmeor Studios

Photograph of a room with wooden floor and white walls. A studio.

New art home @porthmeorstudios!

Just listened to @elizabday podcast where she talks about infertility as the canvas her life was written on 🤍. But also have Philip Guston quote ringing in my ears about all the people that come into the studio with you and how one by one they all leave your thoughts as you work, and if you’re lucky, you leave too. Somewhere in between then…

‘When you start working, everybody is in your studio – the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas… But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one and you are left completely alone. Then if you’re lucky, even you leave.’ Philip Guston

Thank you Borlase Smart Trust for this beautiful new space!

Hospital Rooms Commission

Brilliant to be working with the wonderful Hospital Rooms team. 13 artists are working on workshops and installations for two mental health hospitals in Bodmin and Redruth, I’m delighted to be one of them.

Artists selected: Anna Barriball, Sovay Berriman, Phillippa Clayden, Janet Holland, Chantal Joffe, Alvin Koffe, Abigail Reynolds, Ro Robertson, Ben Sanderson, Melanie Stidolph, Maria Christoforidou and Viviane Vaux, Lucy Willow.

https://hospital-rooms.com/cornwall-hospitals