Emily Whitebread

During 2017 I collaborated on the ‘Spelunking’ public programme with Emma Gibson to lead a workshop that explored the history of ‘shell-lunatics’: presenting a history of collecting natural vs man-made creations as systems of value. Participants embarked on an alteration process, where every shell found was released back into the wild in a new, even more, collectable form during a closing expedition.

Inspired by the ‘Spelunking’ workshops, and encouraged by my mentors, I began to push my writing practice further, culminating in the performance piece ‘Smooth and Rough’ which was performed several times a day at ‘The Well’ exhibition. The performance was a manifestation of writings about my tongue and my experience of returning to Margate – the town where I grew up. It explored how it feels to try to write a text or create an art work that was born from the same maddening frustration that comes from re-inhabiting a place that is in a state of flux and played a significant part in my early adulthood.