In residence within Alice Benbridge’s Residency
KARST Plymouth Nov 5-7th 2018
A four hour journey from my London home to Alice’s home in Plymouth.
One hour from Plymouth, realising that I had no idea what Alice looked like and resulting to researching her on Instagram.
Arriving on time, Alice is nowhere to be seen. For 10 very long minutes whilst waiting, a small part of me thought that maybe I have been cat-fished.
Finally meeting Alice, I later discovered she had messaged me saying she was running late but I didn’t get the message. A small part of her thought that I might of stood her up.
Something as simple as the cup of tea brought the next 24 hours of conversations together with familiarity and charm and ease.
A surprise when for a split second Alice thought that I was wearing her top, then realising that it certainly couldn't be because her one was back at her family home, we just simply had the same top.
My rucksack I brought with is a yellow mustard colour, I bought it in Denmark and hoped that no one else would have it, unsurprisingly Alice had the same one.
Realising that time had just left us when noticing messages on our phones from out loved ones asking how we were.
Realising how intimate the environment was in that time had just left us. That we had been under the same roof for 24 hours without noticing. Without feeling like the flat was small, because the conversation was transportive.
Walking outside with a set of instructions for a walking project, we read together but interpreted differently. This perhaps became our own set of instructions removing from the instructions itself.
Walking into a Waterstones, Alice opened a book of ‘A Poem a Day’ to the page of her birthday. What were the chances, of opening the book myself to the page of my birthday too.
There was a pull to applying to Alice’s residency.
This was perhaps a version of Tinder but for artists. That we had the pleasure of experiencing of meeting by chance, that I read the right proposal at the right time.
That we found each other in a moment where conversation, cooking food and brewing tea was needed to weave within each others lifes and ways of thinking to delve into each others practice.
Because I believe that making art is about how you move through the world within what you encounter.
The encounter itself is the work.
