Sue is a contemporary artist based in South West England, making performance work, sound and video documentations and animations, working both individually and collaboratively as an artist and producer. She is also an Associate Lecturer in Devised Theatre at Dartington College of Arts in Devon (2001 ongoing).

Sue also works as part of Biggerhouse, a collective of artists and filmmakers. Devised theatre and contemporary performance have been at the core of her artistic practice for the past 25 years, which engages site based arts practice, experimental composition and work across media that explores human perception and consciousness, phenomena and nature.

Commissioned Artist : 'Revealing the Landscape' : Neroche, Somerset 2008

Working as part of the Neroche Project in the Blackdown Hills on the Somerset-Devon border, Sue is making a sound, image and text work over the course of the year to be completed in November 2008.

Through walking, collecting and encountering, the artwork will map some of the species and events passing through the Neroche Landscape - a work which tracks some of the migrations and transient movements of seeds, birds, soil, butterflies, people, weather, satellites and waterways.

By travelling both ancient and contemporary walking routes between springs and water courses, as well as research and collection through conversation and encounter, the work will create the sense of a moving and transitional landscape that is inter-connected and full of visitors.

www.nerochescheme.org

Current work: 2005 ongoing

It Is For The Tiger

A performance talk about tigers and humans. I love the tiger, and it would still eat me, yes. This solo contemporary video-text work looks closely at our relations with tigers, the 'wild', our desire to rescue and adopt, anthropomorphic corporate behaviour, our love. Thoughtfulness, humour and desire collaborate to imagine the tiger more alive than extinct, more fur-nomenal than digital.

Performed at (2005-08): Made In Somerset (Artists Showcase), Dartington College of Arts, Georgia State University Atlanta, Exeter Phoenix, Fareham Library Dads n Lads Group, The Phoenix Project in Glastonbury, Anti-Static Festival at the Brewhouse Taunton, Desire Lines Arts and Ecology Conference at DCA, Devon, Arts Depot London and Bristol Mayfest 2008

It Is For The Tiger will continue touring until the year of the (metal) Tiger in 2010.

www.biggerhouse.co.uk/tiger   

Work in development:

Difficult Pony

A series of short videos, texts and animations around horses and women, girls and ponies. The work is inspired by and uses: movie trailer soundtracks, gymkhanas, model ponies and wild horse stories.

watch videos

From 2001 and ongoing:

Associate Lecturer in Theatre at Dartington College of Arts in Devon teaching devised contemporary theatre practices and site-based performance across the curriculum.

www.dartington.ac.uk

Visiting Artist at Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia USA: April 2006

Invited by visual artist Pam Longobardi to the Arts Faculty for presentations of performance both documented and live, discussion and sessions with students.

The residency was the beginning of a collaboration with Pam, resulting in the video installation “Murmuration – Aplexus/Starling” exhibited at the Air Quality and Climate Summit, Georgia Tech Research Institute, Atlanta, GA May 3-4 2006.

field: May 2005

Director and facilitator of the arts lab residential weekend for performers and practitioners in Somerset and South West, produced by Take Art and funded by ACE, which encouraged experimentation in making and producing work, creative dialogue and an exchange of methodologies and practice.

psi: mid space: 2003-04

Arts Council England funded performance project touring South West England, (March - July 2004) including Dartington College of Arts Gallery (work in progress), Cheltenham Festival of Science, Exeter Phoenix, Quest Mind Body Spirit Festival (Devon) and The Phoenix Project  (Somerset).

The project engaged performance, video, intensive research and conversation with audiences to explore psychic phenomena and the power of thought. Through the work, we undertook research and experimention into 'psi' with the internationally recognised parapsychologist Dr Serena Roney Dougal, and clairvoyant/artist Carolyn Findlay.

'psi: mid space' was made in collaboration with performance artists Vic Llewellyn, Lisa Griffiths and filmmaker Stephen Clarke. The dedicated website holds much of the research gathered on psi and the ganzfeld, links to significant sources, quicktime movie clips and photo library.

"A step beyond the usual art/science crossovers – into an uneasy, a-human energy. It feels as peculiar as the physical world probably is."  Phil Smith

Research papers presented:
'On psi and performance' at the International Conference of the Society of Psychical Research September 2004, Winchester UK

"psi: mid space: the ganzfeld as source for performance" at Altered States: transformations of perception, place and performance, a transdisciplinary conference, The Planetary Collegium, University of Plymouth, July 2005

www.biggerhouse.co.uk/psi

Hair Raising: A Year of the Artist Residency - February 2001

A combined arts residency all about hair, in GJs Hair Salon, Shepton Mallet, Somerset: a devised site specific performance in collaboration with Vic Llewellyn performed over 10 day residency.  The subject of hair was intensively researched, from interviews with trichologists and biologists, to hairdressers and sufferers of hair traumas, producing a highly acclaimed event and documentation.  Audio documentary netcast from the Hair Raising website on hair trauma. Installations, story books and magazines architected into the salon.

Invited as key contributor to South West Arts YOTA assessment symposium. Project featured in the publication '365 Year of the Artist in the South West' and in New Theatre Quarterly (Cambridge University Press - May 2002)

watch video on youtube.com

www.biggerhouse.co.uk/performance/hairraising

MA in Cultural Performance 1999-2001

Bristol University in collaboration with Welfare State International (John Fox and Sue Gill).  Course emphasis: place-specific performance and installation combining critical theory with practice as research.  Intensive study of 'ecologies' of theatre, research processes, documentation and archiving, contemporary performance practice, public and community art practice:

- Research project producing a random access real space/cyberspace documentation on PLATFORM - an interdisciplinary company (arts/ecology/ democracy) making place-specific work in London. http://www.platformlondon.org/audio.htm

- Resident artist/maker for The Season of Shadows at WSI in Cumbria collaborating with WSI artists and Cambodian Shadow Puppeteer

The Price of Clouds

- A site-specific work in residence at Brantwood, former home of John Ruskin at Coniston, Cumbria; an 18 minute 'performed' guided tour of the Dining Room for the general public visiting the museum, resulting from intensive research and study of Ruskin's life and work - July 2001.

1998-2001  Co Director of Biggerhouse Productions

Founded with Stephen Clarke, Biggerhouse created new and original work for live events, video and the web, creating one of the first internet radio stations in the UK.

Glastonbury Net Radio: one of the first Internet Radio Stations in the UK using Real Player netcasting 15 original programmes from the site: documentaries, discussion, drama, new writing, with a specific commitment to the arts and social change. Over 100,000 listeners since Feb 99.

Productions included:
Afterlife: a 30 minute programme documenting radical thinking about life after death

Theatre, Politics and Social Change - Augusto Boal: a programme      documenting the Artangel produced 'Art of Legislation' in London

Tracing the Map: a 45 minute audio documentary in 4 parts about the changing face of Glastonbury High Street from 1900 to 2000.

www.biggerhouse.co.uk/archive/glastonburynetradio

1992-98 Freelance performer, director and teacher:
researched, wrote, and performed solo and collaborative work:

Magdalene toured SW England to colleges, arts centres and festivals, including International Meeting of Solo Performance in Switzerland hosted by Teatro delle radici (92-95)

Visions of Hildegard - National tour, including a summer horse-drawn tour, as as a masked actor and shadow puppeteer with Horse and Bamboo Theatre of Rossendale, Lancs 1996

The Legend of the Creaking Floorboard - 7 month international tour with Horse and Bamboo Theatre working as a maker, lead masked actor, bunraku puppeteer and workshop leader 1997

The Quay Thing - a four month season of site-specific performance in Exeter with Wrights and Sites as a performer and collaborator 1998.

Teacher and Director: 1984 - 2002

Numerous devising theatre residencies and sessions in educational contexts: Secondary schools, Primary Schools and Colleges (A level and BTEC) across South West England (87-96).

Residencies included:
- Directing final production of graduating theatre students in production of Garcia’s One Hundred Years of Solitude at SCAT in Somerset.
- Director and workshop leader of A Monkey’s Tale, a youth theatre production at Belmont Arts Centre in Telford.
- Co-Director of a series of 3 residencies with BTEC students at Strode College, Street.

- Visiting Lecturer to MA in Cultural Performance at Bristol University (2001/2)

1982-1992 Founder member of Gog Theatre:

One of South West England's leading companies.  Gog specialised in new devised performance work for regional and national touring, and international cultural exchange. Core member: performing, directing, teaching, administrating, managing and producing.

Key Projects: initiating the first independent Youth Theatre Exchange with Russia (1989), a theatre exchange programme with Rustaveli Company of Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia (1990), and a nine week tour of West Cameroon with a programme of workshops and performances (1985).

Performance: Series of devised T.I.E and regional touring productions to schools, community arts centres and theatres, including: 'Gi'us A Light' (1983), 'Ambitions' by Phil Smith  (1984), 'Pack Up Your Troubles' (1984-85), 'Into Africa' (1986), 'A Comin' Home' (1987) and 'Birdman' - National UK Tour including tour to Republic of Georgia 1989-90.

Research

My research is currently integrated and embedded into my arts practice: site based performance, dialogical practices, autobiography, interdisciplinary practices, video and animation in relation to live performance. Consciousness, the structure and workings of the mind, the field of psi, meditation practices, transpersonal psychology, animal and animal mind.

Work featured in publications:

Hair Raising project:
Fiona Wilkie, "Mapping The Terrain: A Survey of Site-Specific Performance in Britain" New Theatre Quarterly 70 (8:2), May 2002
& in Bob Butler, "365 - Year of The Artist in the South West" Bridport: Agre Books 2001

“psi:mid space: the ganzfeld as source for performance” published in The Liquid Reader, The Plantery Collegium, Plymouth University (2005)