Feet on the ground head in the sky

About

‘Feet on the ground head in the sky’ joins the dots between the shared interests of three graduates, exploring ideas of place and the natural world. Featuring performance, video, photography and installation the exhibition roots us in our immediate surroundings, whilst prompting us to consider our own internal mental landscapes. The name of the exhibition is taken from Talking Heads’ 1983 hit ‘This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)’. 

Alice Burnhope creates textiles, garments and patterns which draw on organic forms and make use of sustainable or recycled processes of making. Almost always designed for use and interaction, her work becomes animated by a human presence or performance. Freya Pryce documents the memory or idea of a place through collecting analogue photographs, writing fragments of text, and by taking walks or ‘wanderings’ through the country. Her research is exhibited as videos, collections or installations which explore how we embody a sense of place. Emma Wright makes images using experimental photographic and chemical processes, working with polaroids, chemigrams and photograms. Flares, textures and fluids populate the surfaces of the film, bringing to mind landscapes both real and imagined. 

‘Feet on the ground head in the sky’ is the climax of ‘The Graduate Project’, a three month programme run by Modern Painters, New Decorators. Across August, September and October three Loughborough University School of Creative Arts graduates have taken part in a residency, digital mentoring and an exhibition opportunity to help overcome some of the barriers created for students in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The resulting exhibition seeks not to replicate a degree show exhibition, but to give the artists a chance to collaborate with others, develop their practice under new circumstances and begin a career in the arts.