IN PRODUCTION
Multimedia Immersive Experience
Premiere: July 2026
Backbone is an immersive multimedia experience to commemorate Ashfield’s coal mining heritage. In 1999, as my father was dying it was announced his pit, Annesley Bentinck Colliery would close. Retracing his footsteps I documented the final months of the colliery’s life, speaking to miners about what a new life might mean in the new millennium.
Revisiting the documentary film and photography archive 25-years later, the immersive multimedia piece aims to bring a coalminers life alive, commemorating the men, the mine and their symbiotic relationship.
Backbone interweaves the past, present and future to tell new stories around coalmining and give voice to its community pride, resilience and strength. The immersive experience aims to give a physical experience and sensation of going underground and of the proud men who were once seen as the backbone of the nation.
Backbone sees remembrance as an opportunity to take pride in Ashfield’s coalmining heritage and sees remembrance as an act of empowerment and agency, a flame to ignite new life and creativity in the former coalfields.
ILLUSTRATED STORYBOOK
A eco-heroine for the 21st century.
A girl with the gift of magic antlers sets out to mend a broken world. Deergirl is about kindness and courage. For in the darkness there are new friends to be found.
For +10 yr olds.
“Deergirl is a unique storybook because children can strongly associate with a heroine who, against all odds, is able to overcome hardship.” Sophie Holdforth, The Learning Trust.
I first started drawing after breaking my wrists in a hit and run accident. As a way of getting my hands and fingers to work again, I picked up a pencil and started doodling.
Drawing everyday I didn’t know where it would take me. All I knew was it made me better. Over time, the character of Deergirl appeared. Piecing together fragments of images, a bigger story suggested itself. A story of magic, kindness and courage.
Deergirl reminds us that everything is connected, human, animals, and our earth are interlinked like family. We need super heroes to protect the world, its diversity and technicolour beauty.
Commissioned by the Arts Council of England
Black and white photography archive of 1,000+ still images that document my father's pit, Annesley Bentinck’s closure at the end of 1999-2000. After his death from miners lung, I retraced his footsteps and spent 3 months documenting the colliery's dying days, talking to miners about their relationship with the pit, thoughts about masculinity and what a new life means in a new millennium.
Commissioned by the Arts Council of England, for Year of the Artist.
Initial concept drawings for coal pillow sculptures. Developed and created from conversations with ex-coalminers after the closure of their pit, Annesley Bentinck.
A pillow, a place to lay your head. And dream.
ESCAPE subverts traditional coal sculptures, representations of miners holding Davey lamps. Embedded in each coal pillow sculpture a miner's creative process is made real.
Inspired by my coal-miner father's quiet creativity. After leaving the industry, he spent his time wanting to heal horses and dreamt up inventions for a horse jacuzzi.
Shown at the National Coal Mining Museum of England and acquired for their permanent collection.
Video / coal / bandage installation.
Commissioned for GIRL, a touring exhibition for the Arts Council of England.
A landscape of coal fills the space, bandaged children's shoes in the darkness. Shadows of children projected onto them. Ghostly. They sing, 'Wallflowers' a playground game that confronts mortality and death.
Shown at New Walsall Art Gallery, Impressions Gallery, York.
