23/07/2026 - A Conference in London

20th June 2026

Research: Conference Participation

On Saturday the 20^th June I made the long trip down to the capital, London. It was an early start, waking up at 04:20, getting a taxi at 05:20, and leaving Darlington station at 05:58, so arrive in time to present at a conference in Camden for just after 10:00am. Low and behold after a wonderful taxi journey to Darlo station with Ali from Iran, I made it to London without any issues and in time for doors and the first panel… the panel I was within.

The conference then, what was it? As stated on the conference webpage, it read a followed;‘The London Arts-Based Research Centre (LABRC) invites proposals for its forthcoming conference, Embodied Aesthetics: The Body and Embodiment in the Arts and Arts-Based Research. This transdisciplinary event will explore the role of the body as subject, medium, and site of inquiry in artistic practice, performance, and arts-based research.

How does the body, as a site of sensation, memory, and imagination, become a primary medium through which art, research, and meaning take form? From psychosomatic experiences to body-based creative methodologies, from dance therapy to the impact of athletics on artistic expression, this conference seeks to investigate how the body is not only represented in art but also acts as an instrument of knowledge, memory, and transformation.’

Conference Themes

• Poetry and the body

• The medical humanities in the arts

• Illness and creative processing

• The body as material

• Embodiment in creative process

• The body as a medium of Arts-Based Research

• Psychosomatics and the expressive body

• Psycho-body dynamics:

• Body-based therapies and healing arts

• Sports, athletics, and movement

• Technology and the posthuman body

• The sacred and ritual body

• Disability, difference and the

• The body in space and movement

• Memory, trauma and the body

• Ecologies of embodiment

From the conference thematic call, it was without doubt an opportunity for myself to apply my research to a new research body and to a new city and a new group of researchers. I was attracted to the idea of embodied inquiry. My practice has been a sustained and elongated mode of inquiry that recognises the body and tacitly of touch, smell, the senses of tacit knowledge, to inform, direct and reveal knowledge, it is then that the conference call out would suit my practice and specifically the methodology of autoethnographic unearthing. As stated in earlier blog conversations, this year has been a chance for me to apply myself outwards, disseminating the research to a field of like-minded practitioners, making myself more known within my practice and the wider-practice available to me. Today was without doubt a moment where such dissemination took place, and where like-minded conversation took part and will continue outside of the conference. I have always stated that my earlier research days were so isolated and closed off where I did not allow others to be a part of my research or me apart of theirs, but now I see the value in the idea of networking. I will always bring it back to my times within the band – I (we) was ‘trained’ to manage our progression and network through the country and Europe, and I now do that as a solo artist. It is great to do, and at first it was nervous, somewhat imposter syndrome kicked in and can give me those little panic attacks, but then I realise I know my work, I know my research, I am a master of it, it is me who knows this and not my audience, so tell them, share it and celebrate it. It is great to do so and later I will discuss my involvement some more, which I believe is a turning point in my field.

So I attended and presented, as stated made it in time, and without getting to the end, what a great day it was to be. I was in the first panel and it was a relevant panel that all researchers fitted neatly into one package not saying we were the same but we brought to the audience a discussion around making, touch, speculation, reflection, that generated good questioning during the Q&A, but also thoughts were seen during presentation.

The first presentation of the panel was delivered by Katie Langrish-Smith, whose doctoral research, Per|Form, explored sculptural encounter through embodied making and performance. As with many of the researchers presenting throughout the conference, Katie occupied the dual role of artist and academic, bringing a practice-based perspective that placed the body at the centre of both making and meaning. Her research investigated how sculptural objects perform through bodily engagement, shifting attention away from the finished object and towards the tactile, physical and relational processes that bring it into being.

Drawing upon influences such as Richard Serra, Katie discussed the relationship between material, place and process, examining how objects become activated through use rather than existing as static forms. Her interest originated through chiropractic practice and a fascination with tools designed to work alongside the body, leading her to investigate historical objects that occupy the space between functionality, culture and sculpture. Examples ranged from Roman athletes, who famously purchased bottles of sweat believing they could inherit another's strength, to the Indian swinging club, whose rhythmic patterns of movement were later appropriated by colonial Britain. These artefacts became more than historical curiosities; they represented shifting cultural meanings and demonstrated how objects carry embodied histories through their use.

Methodologically, Katie's research centred upon encounter, activation and documentation. Through first-hand engagement with the tools she investigated, she recorded performance using moving image, allowing the function and significance of each object to shift through acts of repetition and bodily interaction. Particularly compelling was her decision to remake the swinging clubs in clay, employing traditional ceramic processes including coil building, turning, carving and refining. By translating athletic implements into fragile, hand-built sculptural forms, the objects occupied an intriguing space between utility and sculpture, their ambiguity inviting viewers to reconsider how meaning is generated through touch, movement and material transformation. Her presentation served as an engaging reminder that making itself can function as a critical mode of inquiry, with the body acting not simply as a maker of objects but as an active participant in the production of knowledge.

The second presentation was delivered by Emerald Wise from the Royal College of Art, whose research, Structuring the Umwelt through Relational Aesthetics, explored perception, consciousness and embodied spatial experience through an interdisciplinary creative practice. Emerald began with a personal story that immediately drew the audience into her research. Recounting an encounter in Western Australia with visiting Tibetan monks constructing a traditional sand mandala, she described a moment in which one monk paused, looked directly into her eyes and, as she expressed it, "turned on a light" within her. That encounter remained with her long after the event and ultimately became the catalyst for her doctoral research.

Using the mandala as both a conceptual framework and an evolving research tool, Emerald investigated the symbolic relationship between perception, memory and the unconscious. Rather than treating the mandala as a static visual object, she reimagined it as a spatial model capable of mapping embodied experience. Through an extensive range of practices including meditation, drawing, movement, mapping, dance and engagement with nature, she developed a taxonomy of altered perceptual states that gradually formed into a four-quadrant mandala. These quadrants represented different modes of being in relation to space, including presence, sensory awareness and what she described not as emptiness, but as the lingering after-images of experience.

What particularly interested me was Emerald's ability to move fluidly between artistic practice, psychology and neuroscience. Her discussion of place fields, relational memory and peri-personal space proposed that perception is continually negotiated between first-person experience and the surrounding environment. Creative practice therefore became a means of investigating how bodies occupy, construct and respond to lived space, with each act of making functioning as both an exploration and a form of embodied enquiry. Although our research approaches differ significantly, I found many conceptual resonances with my own doctoral work, particularly in the shared emphasis on attentiveness, lived experience and the relationship between bodies and environments. Like my own exploration of walking and soil, Emerald's research suggested that knowledge emerges not through detached observation but through sustained encounters with the world, where creative practice becomes a means of understanding the often-invisible relationships that shape experience.

The third presentation of the panel was my own. Looking back over the past few years, I have become noticeably more confident when presenting my research. I often think back to my first international conference in Kraków, where my heart was racing and imposter syndrome seemed to overshadow everything I wanted to say. Since then, my confidence has steadily grown alongside the development of my doctoral research. As my understanding of the project has deepened, so too has my ability to communicate it with clarity. Standing before this audience, I felt confident that I could present a coherent body of research that was purposeful, relevant and contributed meaningfully to the themes of both the panel and the wider conference.

My presentation was carefully structured to introduce both myself and the wider aims of my doctoral research before focusing on the methodology of autoethnographic unearthing. Beginning with an overview of the project, I introduced walking as my primary method of engagement with the rural landscapes of northern England and southern Scotland. Drawing upon the work of Rebecca Solnit and Edmund Husserl, I situated walking as both a physical act and a phenomenological mode of inquiry, demonstrating how sustained movement through landscape encourages attentiveness, reflection and embodied forms of knowing. Throughout the presentation, photographic documentation of my fieldwork accompanied my discussion, providing visual context for the landscapes and experiences that continue to shape my research.

From there, I introduced the methodological framework of autoethnographic unearthing, first outlining the principles of evocative autoethnography before explaining how my own approach extends beyond personal reflection to include a sustained engagement with landscape and, more specifically, with soil. Rather than treating soil as a passive material beneath our feet, I proposed that it possesses its own forms of expression, inviting a methodology centred upon encounter, attentiveness and reciprocal exchange.

To demonstrate this methodology in practice, I presented a selection of works produced throughout the doctoral project. These included lumen prints, buried and unearthed 35mm negatives, soil sound recordings, fabrics subjected to processes of burial and unearthed, and Electricfilm, the moving image work recently exhibited at the Bath House in Huddersfield. This particular work consistently generates thoughtful discussion and provided an opportunity to explain the earth battery system that underpins its creation. By introducing the microbial activity that produces measurable electrical outputs within soil, I was able to bridge scientific observation with creative practice, offering the audience an insight into the complex and often invisible ecological systems operating beneath the surface.

Building upon this, I guided the audience towards the ideas of soil collaboration, relationships between the human and the more than human, and the importance of care within my research. Drawing upon George Monbiot's observation that we frequently treat soil as dirt, alongside Maria Puig de la Bellacasa's Matters of Care, I discussed how my practice seeks to reposition soil as an active collaborator rather than a resource to be extracted or represented. The presentation concluded by returning to the central themes of attentiveness, encounter and embodied engagement that underpin autoethnographic unearthing. Ultimately, I argued that the research is concerned not simply with representing landscape, but with fostering meaningful exchanges between human and more than human worlds through sustained acts of creative practice.

The final presentation of the panel was delivered by Martin Bonney of Manchester Metropolitan University and the Royal College of Art. His doctoral research, Craft, Entanglement of Making: Sustainable Futures, explored craft as a site of encounter, sustainability and embodied knowledge. Although distinct from my own research, Martin's work shared many conceptual concerns that had emerged throughout the panel, particularly the importance of care, material engagement and the body as a site through which knowledge is produced.

Working collaboratively across London and Yogyakarta, Martin examined how knowledge emerges through shared making rather than detached observation. His research focused upon apprenticeship, storytelling and co presence, demonstrating how vulnerability, trust and shared labour become essential methodological conditions. Rather than viewing learning as the transfer of information, he presented it as a process of co learning, where repetition, observation, correction and patience gradually cultivate understanding between participants.

A particularly compelling aspect of Martin's presentation was his discussion of material dialogue. Materials were not presented as passive substances awaiting manipulation, but as active participants that shape posture, movement, interaction and decision making throughout the making process. This emphasis on attentiveness closely resonated with my own research, particularly the idea that meaningful relationships with materials develop through time, care and repeated encounters. Although our practices differed significantly, there was a shared understanding that knowledge is generated through sustained engagement with both people and materials. It was a fitting conclusion to a panel that consistently returned to embodiment, relational practice and the value of creative methodologies in generating new forms of understanding.

Following Martin's presentation, the panel opened to questions from the audience. I initiated the discussion by asking about the role of time and duration within practice based research. It is something I have become increasingly conscious of throughout my own doctoral journey. I recognise the privilege I have in being able to return repeatedly to the landscapes that inform my research, allowing relationships to develop over months and years rather than through isolated visits. My question therefore centred upon whether meaningful encounters are dependent upon time, patience and repeated engagement. Rather than seeking immediate answers, I suggested that understanding emerges through the gradual development of relationships with places, materials and subjects. It was encouraging to hear the other panellists expand upon this idea through their own methodologies, each offering different perspectives on how sustained engagement shapes knowledge production within creative practice.

Following a generous round of applause, we broke for refreshments before the next series of presentations. While every speaker offered something of value, several presentations particularly resonated with me because of the ways they explored embodiment, materiality and the production of knowledge through creative practice.

One such presentation came from Concetta, who travelled from Italy to present Invisible Cosmos: The Forgotten Art of Pietro Costa. Her research examined portraiture through the biological material of blood, shifting attention away from physical likeness towards the body itself as both medium and subject. Rather than employing blood as a provocative gesture, she questioned what happens when the body becomes the artwork, proposing blood as a living material that carries identity, memory and knowledge beyond visual representation.

Drawing upon Pietro Costa's monochromatic works produced during the AIDS crisis of the late 1980s, Concetta explored blood as a material deeply entangled with fear, vulnerability and social stigma. Yet within her discussion, blood also became a means of revealing the invisible. Existing beyond immediate perception, it carried biological information that could only be understood through trust, interpretation and scientific knowledge. This challenged traditional understandings of portraiture by proposing what she described as a biological self portrait, where identity exists not through resemblance but through the living material itself. Her discussion surrounding shared bloodlines, family portraiture and the irreproducible nature of blood offered a fascinating reflection on embodiment, prompting questions about what the body knows and how living materials continue to communicate long after they have left the body that produced them. It was a thought provoking presentation that echoed many of the wider themes of material agency and invisible relationships explored throughout the conference.

Another presentation that particularly captured my attention was Jamie Gledhill's Embodied Interaction with Typography from Norwich University of the Arts. Jamie explored how interactive technologies can transform typography into an embodied and participatory experience, allowing audiences to physically engage with language through movement and digital interfaces. Beginning with the historical development of typography, from Ancient Greece through to concrete poetry and contemporary cinematic title design, he demonstrated how text has continually evolved beyond the printed page into spatial and performative forms.

Drawing upon technologies such as Kinect infrared sensing and MediaPipe body tracking, Jamie demonstrated a range of interactive installations including Camille Utterback and Romy Achituv's Text Rain, Rafael Lozano Hemmer's Arkansas Text Stream and his own projects, Data Flow and Journey Words. What interested me most was the way these installations encouraged audiences to become active participants in the construction of meaning. Typography was no longer something to be read passively, but something that responded to bodily movement, collaboration and playful interaction. Language became spatial, performative, relational and multimodal, demonstrating how digital technologies can create new forms of embodied communication.

Beyond the presentation itself, I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with Jamie throughout the conference as we happened to be seated together for much of the day. Our conversations revealed several shared interests surrounding landscape, participation and the creative communication of research. It was encouraging to discover these common threads between our practices, and I was delighted when Jamie suggested continuing the conversation after the conference to discuss a potential collaborative idea.

Reflecting upon the conference as a whole, I left feeling both energised and reassured. Across the presentations there emerged recurring discussions surrounding embodiment, material engagement, care, collaboration and the generation of knowledge through creative practice. Although each researcher approached these ideas from different disciplinary perspectives, there was a shared commitment to understanding how practice can function as a legitimate and rigorous mode of inquiry. Presenting alongside such thoughtful researchers reinforced my confidence in the direction of my own doctoral project and reminded me of the importance of engaging with wider research communities. Conferences such as this provide far more than an opportunity to present work. They create spaces for dialogue, challenge existing assumptions, establish new professional relationships and, perhaps most importantly, remind us that research is rarely undertaken in isolation. I left inspired by the generosity of the speakers, encouraged by the conversations I had throughout the day and excited to continue developing my own research within such a supportive community of practice.