Four Branches

A series of medium-format photographs of sites, now, from The Four Branches of the Mabinogion (Welsh Folklore).

Architectural Biography

This could exist as a zine or a more formal publication and would consist of a series of plan drawings of everywhere I’ve ever lived, from memory.

Alongside those drawings would be written a key memory from my time living there.

Collaborative Azulejo

A massive, public, collaborative, azulejo.

An azulejo is a large, tiled, painting (usually blue on white), found primarily in Portugal.

Azulejos often depict biblical, mythological, or historical scenes.

This would be a public mural of-sorts, tiled onto the side of a large building with an open invitation for community members to come and add a bit from their own experience/life/perspective.

Desert Head

A single-channel video of a head poking out of the sand in a desert landscape, the eyes are closed, framed in such a way as we can’t tell if it’s someone buried up to their neck or whether it’s a decapitated head.

The eyes dart open and we hear the head’s internal monologue, worrying over trivial and mundane aspects of everyday life - “Did I leave the gas on?!…”

At the end of the monologue the eyes close again.

My ideal ‘head’ would be the actor Paul Putner.

Marble Foot

A marble sculpture of one of my feet, attached to a marble base - as if a fragment from a larger sculpture.

Include this work in every exhibition/project/installation I ever have, with an invitation for visitors to touch the foot to bring them good luck.

Over time this repetitive action will begin to polish and wear-away the marble, as we see with sculptures around the world purported to contain good luck.

'Phil Myatt' zine

A zine about Phil Myatt, best known for setting up ‘Mothers’ club in Erdington in the late 60s, using the photos, anecdotes, and recorded conversations I gathered from/with Phil when I was researching my ‘A Real Rock Archive’ project…

…such as when he ran a nightclub in Spain in the 60s and a bunch of key players from the England World Cup-winning squad turned up and he convinced Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst to play on his club’s football team in a beach football match against a rival nightclub the following weekend (I have a photo of this team as evidence).

Etched Zine

A hand-printed, hand-made, publication based on the aesthetic of Louise Bourgeois’ ‘He Disappeared into Complete Silence’.

A series of short autobiographical stories, typed on a typewriter, on the left hand page, with an etching that illustrates that story on the right hand page.

Include stories such as when my uncle went boat-fishing and caught a 6ft shark, but when he got home my auntie wouldn’t let him in the house with it, so he went to the local park and dumped the dead shark in the kids paddling pool.

Or when my family went on a package holiday to Spain and on an evening excursion my Dad got drunk with a friend he’d made on holiday and then proceeded to break into the coach that had taken us there. In the process, they turned on the windscreen wipers and couldn’t turn them off again, so there was just our two families sat on the coach waiting for everyone else to arrive back at the end of the night, with my Dad and his friend creasing up laughing about the windscreen wipers.

Or the time I was out playing in the ashes of a large bonfire with my brother and some friends and I picked up a breeze block and threw it and it hit my brother in the back of the head, so he ran indoors and told my Mum and Dad I’d thrown a lump of wood at him, and I thought it best not to correct him that it was a breeze block.

Or the time a teacher at school pinned my friend to the wall by his throat and pulled his fist back to punch him, before catching himself on, because my friend belched in class.

Or the time I was on a last train back from Birmingham with my wife and singer called Bob Catley walked past and I said, “Didn;t you used to sing for Magnum?” and he replied, '“Still do!”, so he sat with us until Burton-on-Trent where he was being met by Girlschool’s manager. But then after Burton-on-Trent, he reappeared, as he’d expected the doors on the train to open automatically and they didn’t, so he missed his stop.

Or the time I went to L.A. with my friend and we got drunk at The Rainbow on The Sunset Strip and had to get a taxi all the way back across L.A. to our hotel, Downtown, and whilst I ran up to the room to get the money to pay the taxi, the cab driver pulled a gun on my friend.

Or the time Patrick Smith and Nicholas Smedley had a fight at break-time and Nicholas Smedley spat in Patrick Smith’s hair.