As part of this year's Being Human Festival taking place across the country, my film NewBridge [Mapping Space] was screened as part of Sparks of Life: Frankenstein and Regeneration, at the NewBridge Project, Carliol House.

Exploring how our cities’ buildings adapt to changing needs and economies and what energies can spark life into old building stock; Sparks of Life: Frankenstein and Regeneration features a programme of public talks and debates, screenings and an exhibition tackling Frankenstein, local regeneration, the electrical past of Carliol House and the building’s present day life as the home of a vibrant artist-led community. A collaboration between Newcastle University’s Architecture Research Collaborative (ARC) and The NewBridge Project, the programme includes a Frankenstein-themed installation A Spark of Being into the Lifeless Thing from architect Simone Ferracina and The Ghosts of The NewBridge from architect Ed Wainwright, which my film will be screened as part of.

I have been selected to take part in a group show at TESTT Space, a new visual arts hub in Durham city. Curated by Newcastle-based artist and writer Oliver Doe, I can’t remember the last time I used cardamom takes place between 23 November - 9 December, and takes the unfamiliar as its starting point, exploring ways in which we can detach from intimacy, and examine ideas and objects that defy simple categorization. I will be exhibiting my work - including new work connected to my current project Between States - alongside 4 North East based artists:

Joshua Raz explores contemporary painting, creating uncanny, alien landscapes populated by familiar motifs and cultural references. His new works take the ‘Wild West’ as their starting point, with cowboys and stallions punctuating unfamiliar settings that seem almost like stage sets, their false depth confusing viewers’ sense of space.

Stacey Davidson’s works sit between the digital and analogue realms of image making, blurring painting with digital collage and online aesthetics. Pasting appropriated printed images onto canvas alongside bold and bright painted marks that explore the formal aspects of painting, her works question our experience of both painting and the self in the digital age.

Jawbone Jawbone also explore the spaces in between reality and online experience, working across a diverse range of media, and often reimagining their own objects into new formations. Their works channel a daydream-like state to influence decision making. Interested by the qualities between 2D/3D, they create work that has seemingly fallen out of a digital screen or been illogically flattened.

Janina Sabaliauskaite is a lens based media artist. Janina's photography documents and explores physical human interaction, social relationships and taboos around domesticity of love, blurring of gender and sexuality. The work focuses on desire, queer identity and moral restrictions in contemporary society. Her photography raises questions about the functionality of the image and the boundaries between public and private life.

The exhibition will be complimented by a publication produced by curator Oliver Doe in collaboration with four local artists and writers, responding to each others ‘texts’ in a printed form of Chinese Whispers, warping their original intentions and removing their familiarity.

Join us for the preview evening on 22 November, 6-8pm. TESTT Space is located on Floor 2, 26 North Road, Durham. DH1 4SG.