A collective exhibition showcasing the work of past and present BEEF members across expanded film, video art, analogue processes, and sonic experimentation. Expect light, flickers, film loops, projected images, analogue technologies, sound works, OHPs, monitor stacks, record players, slide film, and more, revealing the diverse approaches and spirit of the BEEF collective.
The exhibition will also feature films developed through BEEF workshops over the past year, including works created with workshop participants such as Bigger House: Different Voices. The opening event will include live expanded film and sound performances by BEEF members, bringing together projection, performance, and experimental moving image.
Featuring
Louisa Fairclough’s practice is situated between visual art and music with recent work Mental Falls taking the form of an essay film. Her practice includes a body of expanded 16mm choral film installations, performances with choristers, and drawings. She is currently making sound/live work rooted in her lived experience of psychosis, a project supported by Arts Council England.
Shirley Pegna an artist from Bristol, has experience working with composition and sound encompassing the realm of performance, play and field recordings. Although taking long distance and very close up sounds of our environment with their physical attributes, her work is often set in the domestic.
Presenting Underscore is a collaboration between Louie Pegna, combining their practices in a live performance with sound sensitive visuals and subterranean field recordings.
Matt Davies’ work is primarily engaged with the act of listening, live performance and the exploration of chance based composition via the prism of 16mm experimental cinema. Using DIY microphones, magnetic tape, abstract turntablism, micro sounds, modified projectors and hand processed film loops, he brings the moment and material of projection to the fore. His current practice is concerned with the translation of light into sound with an emphasis on ‘Sound on Film’ techniques.
Melanie Clifford works in translation between moving image, sound, drawing, broadcast, material and site. Her work includes silent film and constructing visual scores for variable sound interpretation – soliciting sensitivity to detail, to minor fluctuations and structural disintegrity. She also works directly with sound and its location: performing site-specific sound pieces and recording found sounds and her own slight interventions, to be edited, reconstructed and broadcast.
Vicky Smith is an artist and academic who has worked with 16mm experimental film and animation for over 30 years. Vicky employs experimental animation and performance to explore the body within a broader ecology of fragility and tenacity.
Sam Francis is an artist, writer, and project maker. Through text, photography, film, sound, and plant-based and ecological practices, she explores relationships with place, the natural world, and beyond-human life. Often collaborative, her work is informed by themes of ritual, liminality, traces, aloneness, and connection, and grounded in an eco-feminist perspective and a deep attention to interwoven ecologies.
Kathy Hinde is an artist and composer whose practice embraces open methods and evolving processes. Through installations, performances and site specific experiences, she aims to nurture a deeper and more embodied connection to the more-than-human world. Composed of hand-made objects, electronics and a blend of digital and analogue systems, her work represents a cross between kinetic sound sculptures and newly invented musical instruments. She creates pieces in response to specific locations and frequently works in collaboration with other practitioners and scientists and often actively involves the audience in the creative process.
Zoe Tissandier’s current practice employs various methods and materials in working through ideas of the archive, collecting, memory, and history, including video, letterpress, projection, sound and installation. She utilises found objects, text and stories, as a way to generate new meanings and assemblages. She spends time accessing material and taking inspiration from various archives, collections and museums. Zoe is interested in the distinction between public and personal archives, the former taking up order and efficiency as its main principles of structuring, the latter embracing unofficial, subjective material to recall different histories and ideas.
Roderick Maclachlan works as a video and lighting designer for creative projects including live music, theatre and performance. A portfolio of this work can be found here rodandcone
Dani Landau a filmmaker and visual artist, who specialises in participatory documentaries. He also works collaboratively on diverse film and media arts projects. Dani is part of collectives in Bristol, UK, including Bristol Expanded and Experimental Film (BEEF) and the Cube Microplex. His PhD research at the University of the West of England is titled ‘Moving Image and Place, Sense as Surfacing’
Ann-Margreth Bohl rooted in her experience as a stone carving sculptor, Ann-Margreth engages with strata as an active and lively materiality. Her current practice jumps between photography, performance,16mm film, embroidery and drawing.
Melissa Edwards’ creative practice centres around analogue film and photography. Drawn to experimentation, she works in an explorative, intuitive way, embracing chance, and the unexpected qualities of analogue media through playful engagement.
Biggerhouse/Different Voices improves access to filmmaking, creative and cultural experiences for neurodivergent filmmakers. Their film created with BEEF will be shown as part of the exhibition.
BEEF Showreel
To celebrate BEEF’s past as well as its present, we have invited former BEEF members to contribute films to a special showreel as part of the exhibition. Bringing together work from across the collective’s history, the programme highlights the range of practices and ideas that have emerged through BEEF, while reflecting its ongoing legacy of experimentation, collaboration, and moving-image practice, including: Katie Davies, Toby Huddlestone, Claudia Pilsl, Esther May-Campbell, Oliver Sutherland, Marko Wilkinson, Charlie Tweed, Savinder Bual, and Alexander Stevenson.
Ongoing announcements on IG: @BEEFBRISTOL
Opening: Wednesday 24 June, 6.30pm – 9.30pm
Exhibition continues: Thu 25 & Fri 26 12pm – 6pm / Sat 27 & 28 Sun: 11am – 6pm
Willway Yard, Willway St, Bedminster, Bristol, BS3 4AZ