Artistic Research
My practice is an ecologically sensitive and feminist making and thinking with others. Improvisations examine the archival vestiges inherent in the timbre and technique of my instruments and the spaces we occupy. I do this in small acoustic collaborations in places whose historical sediment and acoustic have agency in our improvisations.
For me the experience and action of self in music is primarily embodied, subjective and social. My priority is no longer to strive for an ever more precise technique. I sound in commune with others that which comes to my body in the moment. I seek clarity and simplicity in the invitation to perform which constitutes any score I may devise. My musical training and experience inform my approach, but the focus is on the embodied, shared experience of sound.​
I have been invited to present my research at, among others, LAV in Madrid, University of the Arts Helsinki, Canterbury Christchurch University, The RMA Music and/as Process Conference, Sound and Image at Greenwich University, and many UK universities.​​​​
My work is published by Echo Journal. My PhD investigating the influence of instrument, gender and community on the improvising voice was completed in 2024.
I'm currently involved in research with Free Women which investigates physical and political space and place. With David Leahy and Stevie Wishart I'm considering the role of ecologies and our environment in music making.
Underscore and Spaces with David Leahy
David and I are exploring how we can improvise and research in and with our local ecologies. This builds on the Underscore practice David has developed. From it invitation scores often emerge. We see free improvisation as a life practice in which we think and make with our local spaces. This takes from autotheory and the feminist theorising of Donna Haraway but is rooted in our local ecologies, human, woodland, urban and coastal.
