I’ve recently been collaborating with artist Aphra Shemza on her shemza.digital project, following on from work started with Stuart Bachellor. That site has excellent documentation of the work; some details of our collaboration are in this video.

I worked with her to realise an app for co-creation of immersive installation environments with workshop participants, as well as an ‘online exhibtion‘ where site visitors can view a 3D virtual gallery through a first person interface, create digital artworks in an integrated app, and see animated playback of the archive of artworks produced in such a way by all visitors to the site on the walls of a virtual space.

Similar work in a physical gallery space has been exhibited, where site visitors were able to access the painting app on their phones via QR code. This was successfully implemented in such a way that the install process was simple and seamless, not even requiring my presence in the gallery.

It has been a real pleasure working with Aphra, and I find inspiration in the themes of decolonising art history in this project, and particularly her other work which often deals more with environmental issues.

We have ongoing plans to exhibit a more advanced version of the concept we worked on together, in particular for a solo exhibition and associated workshop activities in Wolverhampton in 2023.