In July 2022 I spent a week in the Mani Peninsula, Greece, working alongside a group of artists exploring creative innovation using local natural materials and waste products. Whilst working in a shared outdoor studio, learning and forming friendships with artists from a range of disciplines, we had the opportunity to be playful and experimental with our approaches. We exhibited our final outcomes to the public in the old primary school of Kardamyli, the nearby town.
How do you describe a noise without making a sound? When learning about how the wind whistles through the gaps in the Kalamata olive trees, I became interested in the connections between my drawings of these shapes and the idea of sound being the empty space between physical forms. I made a loom and began weaving using found materials, including olive netting, fabric dipped in soil and water, plants and string. My final outcome was an installation that combined multiple creative processes. When making the paper, I used natural pigments, olive seeds, discarded olive pulp and the leaves of various plants to achieve different textures and colours. The paper formed the book ‘Sounds of Mani’, telling the tale of the noises I experienced when in the Mani Peninsula in Greece.