Brighid Black
I am an artist, writer and researcher living in Teesdale, North East England.
I work across a variety of media, more recently focusing on performance, including sound, moving image and drawing. Over the past nine years my research has engaged with subterranean environments, challenging extractive attitudes. My working process involves bodily immersion in places that challenge my humancentric illusions of control: extreme environments such as caves, mines and moors. Walking, sitting with the land and meditation are part of my process. Gathering found objects, video and film footage, drawings, photographs, and recording sounds supports the development of the work. My interdisciplinary practice engages with archaeological assemblages and former industrial landscapes, including a Neolithic tomb on Orkney, and mine and cave sites in the North Pennines and North Yorkshire. My curiosity is sparked by speculation on deep pasts and deep futures, imagining, through my practice, possibilities for human/non-human exchanges and an expanded understanding of community through ritual. Recent performances have involved shared ceremonies, collectively creating the causes for less destructive, less extractive approaches to more-than-human worlds, conjuring a sense of wonder. Influences on my practice include archaeology, geology and folklore.
I have worked with organisations such as Nenthead Mines Conservation Society and Yorkshire Dales National Park.
Lived Experience
I have lived all my life in North East England and am immersed in the landscapes and histories of the region. I trained and worked as a solicitor before deciding to follow my lifelong creative impulse. It has been a long journey through single parenthood and, latterly, other caring responsibilities. My art and the trajectory of my practice reflects this life experience, which is behind my desire to imagine alternatives to the extractive colonisation of the land.
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