Spike Island Open Studios: Meet the Artists: Annabelle Craven-Jones

In the second part of our series of interviews with artists based at Spike Island, ahead of the artspace’s hugely popular annual Open Studios event, we catch up with artist Annabelle Craven-Jones.

Annabelle Craven-Jones completed her postgraduate Fine Art studies at Chelsea and Wimbledon and a Foundation in Art Psychotherapy, University of Roehampton London. Her practice draws attention to the transforming post-human element between physical and digital interfaces. Works permeate while simultaneously reflecting activities from our daily lives, demonstrating how mediated identities are part of a larger circle of bodily, technological, and cultural systems.

Pics: Annabelle Craven-Jones, ‘Google_Hangout_Sessions [Oxytocin_States]’, 2018. Networked installation [with furnishings (pads, mats, LED lighting panels, filter, mirror, grey marl jersey), iPhones, phone holders, USB tower, DSM5 Manual, Wi-Fi, deaddrop/ flashdrive ]. Pic by Tim Bowditch, courtesy of res. gallery London 2018

Tell us about your art: inspirations, preoccupations, influences etcetera.
It has been amazing to discover that a family relative – painter, suffragette and feminist Annie Swynnerton –was the first woman to be elected into London’s Royal Academy. It feels especially resonant as my late father inspired me to go to the Royal College of Art, where he himself studied in the early 1960s.
I’m currently researching user-based broadcasting and expanded forms of self-publishing.
I’m also re-reading Decreation by the poet Anne Carson, whilst Anne Imhof’s latest atmospheric epic at the Tate Modern is on playback, along with Bifo Berardi’s The Uprising: On Poetry & Finance and K-punk’s recently published blogs. But improvisation, acts of kindness and poetic resonances help to combat strange times.

Tell us what Spike Island means to you as a place to work, connect, socialise, be inspired…
I have been lucky enough to maintain Spike Island as my base for over ten years, which is a fair chunk of time for someone who likes to think in a nomadic way! So, yes, you could say my studio has been through a lot with me. It’s become a sort of parallel mind, in sickness and in health etcetera.

How many Open Studios have you participated in? Any particularly good memories / impressions from previous Open Studios?
I’ve opened my studio every year: re-thinking the studio space is a self-imposed challenge! Especially with three super-large mirrors inhabiting it… although they made an experimental outing in my live-stream-networked installation in Spike Island’s industrial Commissioning Bay for Open Studios 2016. This non-commercial capacity is something I really value about Spike Island.

What does the Open Studios mean to you: a chance to connect with visitors, to see what everyone else in the building is up to, a date to focus your creative energies on?
Open Studios at Spike Island is always a great time to discover new resonances, feedback and camaraderie, or else simply eat Polish donuts and other such delectables. Ultimately, though, it fosters something more than the sum of its parts.

For more info on Annabelle, visit www.spikeisland.org.uk/our-community/studio-artists/annabelle-craven-jones

For more on Spike Island Open Studios, visit www.spikeisland.org.uk/programme/events/open-studios-2019

Read more: Spike Island Open Studios: meet the artists: Stacey Olika