hayley white

Hayley White has over 20 years artistic and leadership experience in the creative sector as an Artist, Artistic Director / CEO, Programmer, Heritage and Site Specific Curator, Fundraiser and Project Manager. Inspired by using artistic, theoretical and heritage research, concepts, themes and ideas to identify human connection to the environment(s), gender, the body and self identity. Creating artwork, environments and artistic programmes to create new knowledge and perspectives, engaging audiences with the aim of influencing individual and social change. 

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PERSONAL PRACTICE / SOMATIC CREATIVITY/ HUMAN/ NATURE /WOMAN

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“Sometimes I feel lost in familiar surroundings. My mind knows logically where I am but without the body’s response and feeling - it’s experience, the narrative is incomplete. My work is about listening to the narrative of / within the body, a somatic response to medical anomalies, a built environment or nature. Turning inwards to the vulnerability and wisdom of the sensing body and understanding that through creativity.”  

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Hayley is a transdisciplinary artist working with drawing, photography, film, sculpture and sound in the extended field where these media intersect with and act as an extension of the body. Exploring the themes of human-object, human-self-woman and human-nature relationships and how these are understood via the body. 

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In 2020 Hayley established a new somatic creativity methodology, using bodily knowledge, meditation, intuition and imagination to understand the female body's lived experience through drawing, sculpture, film and photography. Somatic creativity is a process of making which works through the vulnerability of unknowing, to discovery and knowing, where the outcome and aesthetic of the works is largely an unconscious accident. The process brings the wisdom of the body to make discoveries and create new knowledge, which has connections with postfeminist theory. Ultimately for the artist, creativity allows self transformation and self awareness through discovering new knowledge, a practice of knowing based in-being ‘Onto-epistem-ology’ (Barad 2003).

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The exhibited works in Thinging the thing (Inaugural MA  group show July 2021 at The Margate School) are a culmination of two years of research and artistic development inspired by a medical condition (fibroids - abnormal growths in the womb) focusing on themes of; the female body, body materiality, fragmented internal body, body relational experiences (medical interventions and immersion in nature) and human connection with nature on a micro and macro level. Referencing postfeminist theory the artworks are a ‘creative return to the body, where art, the body, nature and the self are constantly evolving and transforming;  in a cyclical, inter-relational and ongoing Becoming.’  (White 2021).

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Detailed descriptions of the artworks in the exhibition, further works and sale prices can be found here

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CREATIVE COLLABORATIONS

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Hayley is a cross art-form collaborative artist and arts manager with a passion to work with history and heritage of place and cultural resonance of environment. Seeking to highlight the importance of cultural spaces, natural landscapes, built structures, social, cultural and heritage narratives through capital developments and cultural production and programming.   

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Site specific heritage research, curation and development of 3 sites Hoxton Hall (London), Christ Church Clapham (London) and Ellington Park (Ramsgate) uncovering and exploring the built environment and social heritage to inform architects redesign, capital master plans and commissioned programmes. Cultural regeneration and society, place and making through arts and heritage. Curating designs and narratives for and leading on multi-million pound fundraising for capital projects and public buildings and environments - c.£12m. 

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Artistic programming and producing many artists and performers (c.2,000 per year over many years) at Hoxton Hall and Forma Arts with a conceptual, thematic and non genre based and contemporary artistic vision based in leading the collaborations by asking the why? question. This approach has been developed over many years of working with artists, architects and performers. Unique ability to combine the strategic with the creative and consider fundraising alongside preserving high quality artistic outcomes. Collaborative way of working with a strong sense of the artistic process of idea generation to execution, from first hand experience, passion for working with theory, ideas and research as a starting point in the creative process. 

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References

Barad, K. (2003) Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How  Matter Comes to Matter. Publication. The University of Chicago. USA. 

White, H. (2021) Ways of Becoming: Transforming the self and connecting with nature through somatic creativity. MA Thesis/ Object of Memory / Memoire.