VOL. VII
- COLLABORATORS
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Shirley Bell
Edinburgh, Scotland, 1975
MA in philosophy from the university of Edinburgh
MA in Art History from the OU with distinction
‘Things are not outside of us ... rather, they open to us the original place solely from which the experience of measurable external space becomes possible.' G. Agamben. Stanzas: Word and Phantasm in Western Culture, p59.
Bell’s practice is an interdisciplinary one, taking a philosophical approach to the experiential realm in which visual and other art forms are produced. It is a harvesting of tonal qualities and experiential data, a watching, a listening, a moving. It is an attempt to configure a body, and its affects and affectedness, the ongoing affectual composition of a world, the this-ness of the world, the body.
Daily practice is a combination of deep attentiveness, movement through the city and landscapes through running and walking, drawing and painting and writing passages of creative nonfiction prose and poetry, collecting objects and making maps and audio.
There is an embracing of the rhizomatic form of the process, a welcoming that affects always have the immanent capacity to extend further and open up new lines of fight. Remaining open to these can lead to somewhat circuitous processes which invite chaos, rupture and demand patience.
Currently the need to draw and paint other bodies, faces has been emerging through and separate from developing Vigil, this is being welcomed and will be enfolded into the larger project through exploring bodies in the landscape in larger paintings. The next phases of this work will involve developing larger paintings in a study of the phenomenology of Edinburgh, along with vocal compositions which will reflect various landscapes.
The urge to develop vocal pieces, to sing to the landscape has led to Bell joining a chorister group; learning music theory and developing her skills as a soprano. Bell grew up, and still resides, in Edinburgh, a city whom she loves deeply and complicatedly.
She lives in Edinburgh, and works in health and social care with adults who have learning disabilities.
You can find her work at:
Thinking Time
Academia
thewritecondition
We are proud to present her work in our Volume XI.