My practice tests ideas of wild spaces through research based exploration, observation and rituals, often outside of a formal art context, using a language of unseen performance and obsolete communication, Morse and signalling flags, storms and migrations, to map and navigate the world. Documented using drawing, film and sound, ideas often develop into large site specific temporal installations in unusual venues. Conversations with strangers on perceived margins, gangsters, river pilots, cemetery wardens and priests, often activate the work.
Pieces include transforming the Liverpool Hilton into a poetry lighthouse, using a torch and Morse code from the top floor suite across the Irish Sea; poetry buried by workmen at significant crossings; a nautical mile of unravelled and re-knotted boat line, looped between fourth floor rafters in a disused dockside warehouse for Liverpool Biennial fringe.
In 2025 I received funding from Oppenheim-Downes Memorial Trust for Scottish Sculpture Workshop residency, a bursary place at Grizedale Arts’ Valley symposium re-evaluating rural arts practice, and began research at Cecil Sharp House folk archive with sound artist Conor Kelly, exploring composer and song collector Vaughan Williams’ 1900’s journals and fragmented folk song transcripts.transcripts.
I created live site-specific pieces from Bidston Observatory, Highgate Cemetery / Thames foreshore, Crosby beach and two Victorian jails.
I held associate lecturer and programme lead posts at University of the Arts London, and graduated in MA Fine Art from Liverpool John Moores University (first) in 2017.
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Funding and bursaries: Oppenheim-Downes Memorial Trust: Scottish Sculpture Workshop residency, March 2025, Grizedale Arts: Valley symposium, December 2025
Funded residencies: Scottish Sculpture Workshop, March 2025
Selected live site-specific pieces: Hilton Hotel Liverpool, Highgate Cemetery / Thames foreshore, Bidston Observatory, Crosby beach
Education: MA Fine Art: first, Liverpool John Moores University, 2017
Ali Hutchinson 