2022-2025 | Associate Lecturer, Creative Media, University of Plymouth. Contributing to modules: Situated Practice, Experiment, Critical Dialogues, Independent Practice, Dissertation
A Sometimes Project: (Founding Director)
Website / Instagram
Established in Autumn 2024 by artists Caroline Mawdsley and Laura Denning, A Sometimes Project is the space where we bring our skills, experiences, contacts and creativity together to organise extraordinary creative adventures for others. We aim to be irregular, with no set schedule or venue – just a desire to create thoughtful, creative experiences. We believe in care-full, sensuous engagement with the elements, and aim to bring artists and audiences together to share these nature-culture entanglements. We organise and facilitate creative workshops and short residencies, aimed at practicing artists, mature art students and anyone with a passion or curiosity about creative processes, materials and themes. We bring in artists who are specialists in their fields, we locate exceptional venues and we aim to create convivial and inspirational environments where everyone can learn and share together. We also sometimes curate exhibitions, and in the near future we will be offering mentoring programmes and short online courses.
Recent residencies have included:
– The Lithic Estuary (with Rona Lee and Alyson Hallett)
– Migration, Identity and Rurality (with Antonina Szram and Davina Quinliven)
– Embodied Archaeology for Artists (with Fay Stevens and Alan Endacott)
– The Critical Friends Residency
– First Artists Residency February 2025, with an Astronomer, a Marine Archaeologist and an Estuaries Specialist
Various one-day workshops organised on a monthly basis which have included:
– Time: The Walkshop
– Soundings (listening to the more than human)
– Painting with Pigments
Exhibitions
Even Corporations Will be Drowned (moving image) as part of Bathing Places, 37 Looe St Gallery, Plymouth June 2026
Large prints of Tarot of the Weather included in ‘Where Are We Now?’ Thelma Hubert Gallery, Sept/Oct 2025 (A CAMP group show).
Tarot of the Weather exhibited at ‘The State We’re in’ Terre Verte Gallery, Launceston July 2025 and UWE (University of the West of England) September 2025. A CAMP Writers KIN initiative
Tarot of the Weather included in Studio KIND Summer Open, July 2025
Theatre Royal Plymouth – Space Race. February to September 2025 – successful applicant for long term access to rehearsal space at TR2, to develop new work for the Autumn Lab Season
Oct 2025 | Conference Paper ‘Body as Location’ delivered as part of Baltic Waterscapes conference, University of Gdansk, Poland
Weathered Women Walking Tarot Pack included in the collection of the Wellcome Trust and The Warburg Institute (April 2025), as well as being included in The State We’re In – CAMP Writers’ KIN Artist’s Book Project, a limited edition of 24 boxed sets of artists’ books, the outcome of a collaborative project between eleven members of CAMP Writers’ KIN. A boxed set is now within the collections of University of the West of England (UWE), University of Plymouth, Arts University Plymouth, UAL, Falmouth University and both KARST and Terre Verte galleries. Readings from Weathered Women Walking given at The End, a book arts fair at The Exchange, Penzance (Cornwall), May 2025. The project was reviewed in The BOOK ARTS NEWSLETTER No. 166 April-June 2025
NEST (Narratives for Ecological and Sustainable Transition(s): Bergamo, May 2025. Presented Tarot of the Weather (Weathered Women Walking) at this conference, hosting a workshop with women from Bergamo to use the deck and readings to explore personal stories of climate change and climate resilience. LINK
British Academy Small Research Grant recipient 2023-2025. This arts research project has led to the creation of a Tarot of the Weather (Weathered Women Walking) exploring kinship, weather and trauma, and culminated in April 2025 with an international conference
Island narratives of kinship, place, and the weather on South Uist and online
Cremyll Commuters – collaboration with Ines Rae. This 8 minute sound piece tells the stories of the 8 minute crossing between Cremyll (Cornwall) and Plymouth (Devon). Many people use this ferry to commute to and from work, and these are their stories. Produced for
ActivateChat and included in Connecting Commutes as part of Braga25
Portuguese Capital of Culture programme March- November 2025. The
project is based on the concepts of mobility, territory, heritage, landscape, public space and community, opening up avenues of creation in the field of sound and also in the thinking associated with this theme. Between March and November 2025, sound works will be
presented on the buses of this network and will also be made available online. Associated with the sound content, there will also be a publication of written essays on the theme of the project and the sound content itself.
Curated exhibition for Exeter Art Week – June 2025. Underground/Passage: at the Underground Passages, Exeter, from open call, with artists responding to the themes: Underground: subterrestrial, experimental, radical, ecological / Passage: movement, transition, clause, extract, ecological.
Curated and produced Moving Waters – 4 simultaneous exhibitions of international moving image works, (Plymouth Arts Cinema, Terre Verte Gallery, Devonport Market Hall and
Plymouth Art Weekender (Leadworks). October 2024
River Radio – sound works included in a community radio takeover streaming 60 hours of river-themed programming from the Wharfinger’s Office at Exeter Custom House, 13th-15th September 2024.
May 2024 Moving Image work ‘Oxidental Bodies’, screened at Alternate Sensory
Realities, Plymouth.
March 2024 – Live Tarot Reading of the Weather at SOAK Live Art, Plymouth.
January 2024 – completed Braille Bestiary for Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity, for work focused upon medieval York, UK.
2023-25 | British Academy Small Research Grant: Principal Investigator – Wet Ontologies. A 2-year exploration of living with wetness as a lens through which to understand kinship.
April 2023 | ‘Oxidental Bodies’. Short film screened at SoundFjord // Nomadic Sonic Art Gallery & Research Unit at Café OTO, London, as part of Aural Diversities/Encounters.
Aug-Nov 2022 | short film Forest included in Geumgang Nature Art Biennale Video Exhibition, South Korea
Aug 2022 | Ductus – a work in progress, Sprite Arts, Plymouth
Jul-Dec 2022 | Future Communities/Sprite Arts – collaborative take-over of city centre shop, Plymouth (July -December) Funded by Plymouth Culture and Plymouth City Council
July 22 | Immersion (Plymouth University/Marine Institute). Collaboration with geographer Dr. Eva Magrath to develop a pilot project to consider the relationship between sea swimming and sense of self in/on Plymouth’s coastal strand. Our project aimed to make visible the invisible narratives within and around Firestone Bay. Final work was exhibited at Sprite Arts Plymouth
Jun 2022 – May 23 | Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity – University of York. I was one of 4 artists commissioned for this 12-month residency, working with Chantal Berry whose PhD focuses upon acoustic ecology, or the sounds and rhythms of human-nature relationships between c.1500-c.1800. Outcomes include a sound piece and a Braille Bestiary
Apr 2022 | Brigstow Institute (Bristol University) Recipient of seed funding for Seeing the invisible, hearing the inaudible: revealing estuarine mysteries through art and science. This pilot research project is an art/science collaboration with South Devon AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), and the School of Biological Sciences, Bristol University. Our first event involved engaging residents within the catchment in a twilight event to understand what barriers people perceive in engaging with the site after dark
Feb 2022 | Presentation of creative practice as part of city-wide engagement with British Art Show 9 with CAMP
Jan-Dec 2022 | Cultural Investment Fund/Plymouth Culture Commissioned Researcher: Cine Sisters SW were funded for 12 months to investigate ways to improve the access that refugees and asylum seekers in Plymouth have to the cultural sector
Jul-Dec 2022 | Future Communities/Sprite Arts – collaborative take-over of city centre shop, Plymouth (July -December) Funded by Plymouth Culture and Plymouth City Council
July 22 | Immersion (Plymouth University/Marine Institute). Collaboration with geographer Dr. Eva Magrath to develop a pilot project to consider the relationship between sea swimming and sense of self in/on Plymouth’s coastal strand. Our project aimed to make visible the invisible narratives within and around Firestone Bay. Final work was exhibited at Sprite Arts Plymouth
Jun 2022 – May 23 | Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity – University of York. I was one of 4 artists commissioned for this 12-month residency, working with Chantal Berry whose PhD focuses upon acoustic ecology, or the sounds and rhythms of human-nature relationships between c.1500-c.1800. Outcomes include a sound piece and a Braille Bestiary
Jun 2022 | Palimpsest – Movement & Correspondences of wetness with Dr. D. Sateesh (Srishti Manipal Institute, Bangalore) and I continue to develop an experimental exploration of the body as a location in wet worlds. We presented our work in progress at Sentient Performativities at Schumacher College in June 2022
Jun 2022 | Wolf Flow Dr. Helen Billinghurst and I shared initial insights into the sensory, folkloric, geographic, historic and ecological weavings of these intersecting trails at Cappadocia University, Turkey (May 22) and Sentient Performativities at Schumacher College, June 2022
Apr 2022 | Brigstow Institute (Bristol University) Recipient of seed funding for Seeing the invisible, hearing the inaudible: revealing estuarine mysteries through art and science. This pilot research project is an art/science collaboration with South Devon AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), and the School of Biological Sciences, Bristol University. Our first event involved engaging residents within the catchment in a twilight event to understand what barriers people perceive in engaging with the site after dark
Feb 2022 | Presentation of creative practice as part of city-wide engagement with British Art Show 9 with CAMP
Jan-Dec 2022 | Cultural Investment Fund/Plymouth Culture Commissioned Researcher: Cine Sisters SW were funded for 12 months to investigate ways to improve the access that refugees and asylum seekers in Plymouth have to the cultural sector
Nov 2021 | Performance lecture with Dr. D. Sateesh: ‘Temporal Wanderings – Tactics for an Embodied Methodology’ presented at ‘Phenomenal Time – Perceiving Ecological Temporalities’ as part of the Edinburgh Environmental Humanities Network seminar series (November 2021).
Nov 2021 | Work selected for Photoworks publication Photography+. November issue
Nov 2021 | All day screening of Phyx at Exeter Phoenix. Durational film exploring overlapping themes of environmental and social justice through moving painting
Sept 2021 | Work included in Video Art and Experimental Film Event, SEA Foundation, Tilburg, Netherlands
Sept 2021 | Co-leading CAMP Artists Walk with Mark Leahy and Kate Paxman, in partnership with skylark.fm
Sept 2021 | In collaboration with Dr. Deepta Sateesh – presented collaborative creative practice at ‘Multiple Ecologies, Diverse Ontologies: More Just, More Sustainable Futures, University of Plymouth
Sept 2021 | Commission for Beastly Landscapes ‘We are all Beasts’ Moving Image piece for Newcastle University’s Centre for Research Excellence in Landscape
Aug 2021 | Erme Trace Overnight Residency: self-initiated artists gathering. Outcome: soundwork broadcast on SoundArt Radio
Summer 2021 | Peer-reviewed illustrated poem in SFRA (Science Fiction Research Association Journal): ‘The Underside of Time’
Mar 2021 | Film screened as part of Temporal Belongings: The Material Life of Time (University of Edinburgh): ‘The Underside of Time’
Mar 2021 | Joint presentation with Dr. Suzi Richer – Art + Anthropocene Virtual Seminar Series (University of York): ‘Sounds of Sampling’
Jan 2021 | Film screened as part of Living in the End Times: Utopian and Dystopian Representations of Pandemics (Cappadocia University, Turkey): ‘The Underside of Time’
July 2020 | Commission for The Arts Institute, Plymouth University – ‘The Underside of Time’ moving image work responding to the theme ‘ Everything has changed. Nothing has changed. Change is coming’.
2020-23 | During lockdown I set up a support group for women filmmakers in the South West –Cine Sisters SW (CSSW), in response to my experience of working in the sector when producing Manual for Nomads (2020). CSSW launched at Plymouth Art Weekender with curated screenings, Q&As and online networking, all events sold out, September 2020. We now have over 250 members. CSSW registered the organisation as a Community Interest Company (CIC) in December 2020, and had 3 Directors. I resigned in January 2023 to pursue my own practice. CSSW secured our first major funding award (Arts Council England £15k) and over £20k in support-in-kind from cultural partnerships
Residencies
Jul 2025 | Residency participant ‘Imagining Godzilla’ aboard a catamaran which focuses on investigating the environmental challenges facing the Baltic Sea and its surroundings. It is conceived and run by artists Merja Puustinen and Andy Best
Nov 2019 | Art-Science hothouse residency: hosted by art.earth, CCANW and Science Walden
Nov 2018 | Srishti School of Art & Design, Bangalore
Jul 2018 | Concordia University, Montreal. Funded by GALA network
Jun 2018 | Global Nomadic Art Project at Schumacher College, UK. ‘The Ephemeral River’
Mar 2018 | Porthleven Prize, residency with BSAD
Qualifications
Practice-led PhD in Environmental Humanities, Bath Spa University, 2022. My practice-led PhD presented three major bodies of work in response to Neimanis’s seminal essay Hydrofeminism (2012) demonstrating how Hydrofeminism can be extended beyond its textual reference. The work mobilised the concept of the ecotone to bring difference and connectivity into creative works which proposed a watery relationality. By harnessing the communicative capacity of British Sign Language I rendered silence as a text that could be read, and demonstrated that the ecotone can convey multiple meanings and offer new insights into embodiment and affect. Within this research I also positioned the body as a location, mobilising watery exchanges as inscriptions of both difference and connectivity
PGDip: Teaching/Learning in HE, University of Plymouth 2000
MA Social History of Art, University of Leeds 1990
BA (hons) Fine Art 2:1, Manchester Metropolitan University 1989
Publications
Book chapter ‘Body as Location’ in Baltic Waterscapes. University of Edinburgh Press 2027
Chapter in ‘Rethinking Creativity in the Era of Ecocide. Embodiment, Performance and Practice’. Bloomsbury 2023
Peer-reviewed chapter in Special Issue of Geohumanities (Official Journal of the Association of American Geographers) Ecotone as methodology. June 2021. DOI: 10.1080/2373566X.2021.1923404
Chapter in EnCOUnTErs (ecoacoustics and the more-than-human). ACE funded publication 2021
Chapter in Special Issue of Geohumanities (Official Journal of the Association of American Geographers) 2021
Chapter in ‘Rethinking Creativity in the Era of Ecocide. Embodiment, Performance and Practice’ Emerald Publishing 2021
Creative practice featured in ‘Culture, Community, Climate’ art.earth 2020
Chapter in Monsoon Waters – University of Westminster 2019
Book Review ‘Routledge handbook of gender and environment’ Green Letters, Taylor & Francis 2019
Chapter in ‘Imagining Islands: Visual Culture in the Northern British Archipelago’ co-authored with Prof. Owain Jones, Routledge 2018
Creative practice featured in Yatoo GNAP publications (Korea) Water 2016; Wind 2018
Creative practice featured in ‘Ephemeral River’ art.earth GNAP 2018
Book Review: ‘Tree’ in Green Letters, Taylor & Francis 2018
Memberships
A-N (Artists Information Company) 2016~
CAMP (Contemporary Arts Membership Plymouth) 2019~
Laura Denning 