Lydia Beilby is an artist working with 8mm and 16mm photochemical film, archival ephemera and text. Lydia’s practice explores the camera apparatus and projection medium as both a performative process, and an extension of the body, and this way of working centralises hand-made, artisanal, co-operative and environmentally sustainable approaches. With a particular interest in the tactility and physicality of the analogue medium, these qualities are foregrounded within Lydia’s creative methodologies. Much of Lydia’s work takes the form of live performance, considering film and projection as a sculptural form, malleable and open to manipulations that encourage the active participation of the audience.

Lydia is interested in creative ways of imparting knowledge around analogue processes and small-gauge filmmaking, and to this end teaches courses on experimental filmmaking and film studies with various institutions, archives, collectives and community groups. 

The artist plans to use this residency to begin development on a project exploring the symbiosis between voice and image. Magnifying these themes through an investigation of words (specifically the handwritten word) and language, and the parallels that might be drawn with photochemical film. Lydia looks forward to the space and time Cove Park might offer, to start shaping these ideas, through writing and reflective image-making.

Image: courtesy of Fruitmarket Gallery