SHIFT HAPPENS presented work made in collaboration with a group from Brighton Women’s Centre for Phoenix Art Space's Community Takeover, A Seat at the Table. The exhibition explored the process of making art as a way to think through personal experience, using analogue and experimental technologies. Within the group we asked ourselves what it means to reflect upon, activate, and acclimatise to change, how can we seek ways to visualise the uncertainties and complexities of our lives? Individual ideas were developed collectively, and during the exhibition visitors were invited to contribute to the ongoing enquiry by writing a postcard, drawing to create a Food Bank Still Life (with Phoenix Food Shop), adding to the wall of monoprint chairs and performing at the BWC Open Mic.

This year-long project began with the video Lazy, developed from a previous project bringing the story of a LazyBoy chair into a discussion about power, resilience, mental health and recovery. Here different chairs were interrogated as a site of both conflict and comfort, with other objects and narratives informing the material explorations. The project involved making monoprints, large-scale and collaborative drawings, 360 video, performance, animation and playing with objects and words. SHIFT HAPPENS was made by twelve people who met on a regular basis, committing to seeing what emerges when they trust a creative process and each other.

THE ‘SHIFTERS’:

Alyce, Annis, Cindy, Jacq, Jaqueline, Jeanette, Lee, Leila, Pip, Phillipa, Sarah, Stevie

​