Focal Point Gallery

’The Storm’, Rebecca Chesney with Lubaina Himid

'The Storm' is an audio work by Rebecca Chesney with Lubaina Himid as part of 'Storm Warning', a free exhibition at Focal Point Gallery, Southend on until Saturday 6th January 2024.

Dub Plants + Estuary Acoustic Radio 2022

Joe Namy explores the historically connected kinship between radio culture and agriculture. The project, titled Dub Plants + Estuary Acoustic Radio dips into radio waves first transmitted across the Estuary in 1920, where the first live entertainment broadcast was streamed from Marconi’s Chelmsford workshop. This technology was later pirated in 1944, when one of the earliest works of electronic music was created using radio technology to dub a transmutated zaar healing ceremony by the visionary composer and creative ethnomusicologist Halim El Dabh in a radio studio in Cairo. Radio waves planting new sounds and dreams for growth and healing.

For Receiver, Namy expands this idea into an immersive installation at Focal Point Gallery containing bamboo plants and sounds for growth and regeneration. Plant biodata is translated into bass lines and amplified along with sonic frequencies scientifically calculated to promote plant growth, mixed with a playlist developed from workshops with Southend’s Project 49 group for adults with learning disabilities and Dagenham’s Ab Phab’ youth club, creating intros for dream shows. These sounds broadcast here online and at Focal Point Gallery serve as a reminder of the Estuary’s association with pioneering broadcast technology.

Receiver brings together four artists, Appau Jr Boayke-Yiadom, Frazer Merrick, Joe Namy, Nastassja Simensky to consider sound in relation to innovative technologies, and our understanding of place. It explores Essex’s historic and current relationship with broadcasting pioneering audio technologies, the movement of people and cultures, and the unique soundscapes of its coastline and estuaries. Receiver is on until Sunday 23 December.

FPG Sounds: Vibe Southend

Focal Point Gallery is pleased to announce the thirteenth commission as part of ‘FPG Sounds’, an online project to support the development of new sound works by artists or groups from or based in Southend-on-Sea.

For this commission,  participants from Vibe Southend were joined by Frazer Merrick and Jack Vernon from CLIP for a series of workshops on making music from everyday sounds. Using the iPad app Koala, the group were encouraged to listen to and record sounds from the room around them and turn them into drum beats, melodies and even whole songs. The result is a mix of audio tracks and discussions that emerged from the workshop. 

Vibe Southend is a social club and multi-media studio for adults with learning disabilities based in Southchurch, Southend-on-Sea.

CLIP provide musical services and products which enable and empower people to take creative risks and create exciting new music. Based in North Essex, their free accessible music workshops support creatives to explore new technologies and get curious with sound in supportive and encouraging environments, ensuring self-perceived ability is never a barrier to entry. CLIP’s innovative range of music instruments offers exciting new accessible ways of making electronic music, and in turn generating income with supports our social cause.

FPG Sounds: Carrissa Baxter, ’A letter to the Black Forgotten Soldiers’

Focal Point Gallery is pleased to announce the twelfth commission as part of ‘FPG Sounds’, an online project to support the development of new sound works by artists from or based in Southend-on-Sea.

For this commission Southend-born spoken word artist, Carrissa Baxter has created three original pieces covering a range of topics that she is passionate about. ‘Dear Survival’, ‘A response to knife crime’ and ‘A letter to the Black Forgotten Soldiers’ tackle topics from knife crime to mental health and every piece is innovative and refreshing for audiences of all ages. She doesn’t just captivate her audience with her voice, every performance is like a story unfolding, every second a rollercoaster ride, every sentence a turn you aren’t expecting. 

As a part of this commission, Carissa has invited local musicians to collaborate on the accompanying track for ‘Dear Survival’. Music by Sam Duckworth and Rees Broomfield. Recorded by Sam Duckworth and Rees Broomfield at SS2 Recording, Southend

“As a spoken word artist, I have really enjoyed working with Focal Point Gallery, as they have given me the opportunity to write and record new pieces. I am so grateful to have been able to work with them and they have been so supportive in working around my educational priorities. I have learnt amazing skills and I am just so thankful.” – Carrissa Baxter.

Carrissa Baxter is a spoken word artist. She is of Jamaican heritage and was born and raised in the city of Southend-on-Sea, Essex. Carrissa has been invited to perform all over Essex and London. It is her confidence and youth that leaves people in awe as she tackles taboo topics. Her style incorporates difficult topics and makes it a comfortable environment whilst still holding the seriousness that the topic entails. Her work has been viewed by thousands and she believes that “you don’t have to be a certain age to make an impact on our world, you just need confidence!”.

FPG Sounds: Carissa Baxter | Focal Point Gallery

FPG Sounds: Carrissa Baxter, ’A response to knife crime’

Focal Point Gallery is pleased to announce the twelfth commission as part of ‘FPG Sounds’, an online project to support the development of new sound works by artists from or based in Southend-on-Sea.

For this commission Southend-born spoken word artist, Carrissa Baxter has created three original pieces covering a range of topics that she is passionate about. ‘Dear Survival’, ‘A response to knife crime’ and ‘A letter to the Black Forgotten Soldiers’ tackle topics from knife crime to mental health and every piece is innovative and refreshing for audiences of all ages. She doesn’t just captivate her audience with her voice, every performance is like a story unfolding, every second a rollercoaster ride, every sentence a turn you aren’t expecting.

As a part of this commission, Carissa has invited local musicians to collaborate on the accompanying track for ‘Dear Survival’. Music by Sam Duckworth and Rees Broomfield. Recorded by Sam Duckworth and Rees Broomfield at SS2 Recording, Southend

“As a spoken word artist, I have really enjoyed working with Focal Point Gallery, as they have given me the opportunity to write and record new pieces. I am so grateful to have been able to work with them and they have been so supportive in working around my educational priorities. I have learnt amazing skills and I am just so thankful.” - Carrissa Baxter.

Carrissa Baxter is a spoken word artist. She is of Jamaican heritage and was born and raised in the city of Southend-on-Sea, Essex. Carrissa has been invited to perform all over Essex and London. It is her confidence and youth that leaves people in awe as she tackles taboo topics. Her style incorporates difficult topics and makes it a comfortable environment whilst still holding the seriousness that the topic entails. Her work has been viewed by thousands and she believes that “you don’t have to be a certain age to make an impact on our world, you just need confidence!”.

FPG Sounds: Carissa Baxter | Focal Point Gallery

FPG Sounds: Carrissa Baxter, ’Dear Survival’

Focal Point Gallery is pleased to announce the twelfth commission as part of ‘FPG Sounds’, an online project to support the development of new sound works by artists from or based in Southend-on-Sea.

For this commission Southend-born spoken word artist, Carrissa Baxter has created three original pieces covering a range of topics that she is passionate about. ‘Dear Survival’, ‘A response to knife crime’ and ‘A letter to the Black Forgotten Soldiers’ tackle topics from knife crime to mental health and every piece is innovative and refreshing for audiences of all ages. She doesn’t just captivate her audience with her voice, every performance is like a story unfolding, every second a rollercoaster ride, every sentence a turn you aren’t expecting.

As a part of this commission, Carissa has invited local musicians to collaborate on the accompanying track for ‘Dear Survival’. Music by Sam Duckworth and Rees Broomfield. Recorded by Sam Duckworth and Rees Broomfield at SS2 Recording, Southend.

“As a spoken word artist, I have really enjoyed working with Focal Point Gallery, as they have given me the opportunity to write and record new pieces. I am so grateful to have been able to work with them and they have been so supportive in working around my educational priorities. I have learnt amazing skills and I am just so thankful.” - Carrissa Baxter.

Carrissa Baxter is a spoken word artist. She is of Jamaican heritage and was born and raised in the city of Southend-on-Sea, Essex. Carrissa has been invited to perform all over Essex and London. It is her confidence and youth that leaves people in awe as she tackles taboo topics. Her style incorporates difficult topics and makes it a comfortable environment whilst still holding the seriousness that the topic entails. Her work has been viewed by thousands and she believes that “you don’t have to be a certain age to make an impact on our world, you just need confidence!”.

FPG Sounds: Carissa Baxter | Focal Point Gallery

FPG Sounds: Billie Baxter, ’A fine little edge to slip in’

Focal Point Gallery is pleased to announce the eleventh commission as part of ‘FPG Sounds’, an online project to support the development of new sound works by artists from or based in Southend-on-Sea.

 

For this commission, multidisciplinary sound and visual artist Billie Baxter has created an explorative audio journey through their hometown of Southend. Recorded in November 2021 whilst visiting close friends back home, 'A fine little edge to slip in' is layered with field recordings, synth experiments, throat exercises, Foley and effects in what the artist describes as a "sound nugget terrazzo". Interested in how the listener can discern between the original recording and layered sound, the work collages together recognisable and abstract moments to contrast the mundane with the bizarre.

Billie Baxter is a multidisciplinary sound and visual artist interested in communication, anthropology, folklore, processing memories, and finding beauty in the everyday. She studied Illustration at University of Brighton, and is currently based in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire.

FPG Sounds: Nastassja Simensky and Rebecca Lee, ’Waymarks Beach’

Focal Point Gallery is pleased to announce the tenth commission as part of ‘FPG Sounds’, an online project to support the development of new sound works by artists from or based in Southend-on-Sea.

For their contribution to Focal Point Gallery’s experimental sound programme artist’s Nastassja Simensky and Rebecca Lee present Rings on Water. The commission for Focal Point Gallery continues Nastassja and Rebecca’s previous collaborations and draws on their shared interest in time, listening, material culture and land-use. The new audio work takes the form of a collection of sonic fieldnotes and includes field recordings, amateur radio and writing from Leaky Transmissions, Nastassja’s ongoing research and work in Bradwell and the Blackwater Estuary.

Many types of human transmission comingle and leave their mark on the Estuary, which is itself an increasingly regulated and privatised space. Cellular networks coalesce with wireless connections, electrical substations with Bluetooth signal, slow-scan television with ham radio transmissions. High-frequency short wavelengths of irradiated graphite within Bradwell A Power Station occupy the opposite end of radio spectrum to the long wavelengths of amateur radio and VLF signals generated by thunderstorms and solar weather. Non-human forces persist, from the Estuary's conductive geology, to sputtering background radiation, to the Earth's vast and sweeping electromagnetic fields.

Rings on Water uses a variety of recording and transmission technologies, from FM radio, magnetic tape, coil receivers, hydrophones and contact mics to traverse the protected saltmarshes and shale banks of the Dengie Peninsular and industrial arable land. Slow Scan Television (SSTV) and the politics of ‘radio’ as a means of transmission, collision, translation and interference are used to consider the material legacies of changing land-use and energy production in the Blackwater Estuary. SSTV is a picture transmission method, used mainly by amateur radio operators, to transmit and receive static pictures over the radio spectrum.

About the artists: 

Nastassja Simensky often works collaboratively to make writing, place-specific performances, events, sound work and films as a form of ongoing fieldwork. Leaky Transmissions is a body of artwork and research Nastassja is developing through a PhD at the Slade exploring changing land-use and the potential of collaborative fieldwork involving artists and archaeologists. Works from this commission will inform Simensky's inclusion in the group exhibition 'Receiver' at Focal Point Gallery from 2nd October to 23rd December 2022.

Rebecca Lee is a musician, composer, and sound practitioner producing performance, sound works, projects, and publications, with a particular focus on narrative, time and collaborative methods. She often works long term with place, draws on written forms, and uses improvisation, scores, and DIY approaches to combine musical materials, forms, or skills.

https://www.fpg.org.uk/exhibition/rings-on-water/

FPG Sounds: Nastassja Simensky and Rebecca Lee, ’Succession III’

Focal Point Gallery is pleased to announce the tenth commission as part of ‘FPG Sounds’, an online project to support the development of new sound works by artists from or based in Southend-on-Sea.

For their contribution to Focal Point Gallery’s experimental sound programme artist’s Nastassja Simensky and Rebecca Lee present Rings on Water. The commission for Focal Point Gallery continues Nastassja and Rebecca’s previous collaborations and draws on their shared interest in time, listening, material culture and land-use. The new audio work takes the form of a collection of sonic fieldnotes and includes field recordings, amateur radio and writing from Leaky Transmissions, Nastassja’s ongoing research and work in Bradwell and the Blackwater Estuary.

Many types of human transmission comingle and leave their mark on the Estuary, which is itself an increasingly regulated and privatised space. Cellular networks coalesce with wireless connections, electrical substations with Bluetooth signal, slow-scan television with ham radio transmissions. High-frequency short wavelengths of irradiated graphite within Bradwell A Power Station occupy the opposite end of radio spectrum to the long wavelengths of amateur radio and VLF signals generated by thunderstorms and solar weather. Non-human forces persist, from the Estuary's conductive geology, to sputtering background radiation, to the Earth's vast and sweeping electromagnetic fields.

Rings on Water uses a variety of recording and transmission technologies, from FM radio, magnetic tape, coil receivers, hydrophones and contact mics to traverse the protected saltmarshes and shale banks of the Dengie Peninsular and industrial arable land. Slow Scan Television (SSTV) and the politics of ‘radio’ as a means of transmission, collision, translation and interference are used to consider the material legacies of changing land-use and energy production in the Blackwater Estuary. SSTV is a picture transmission method, used mainly by amateur radio operators, to transmit and receive static pictures over the radio spectrum.

About the artists: 

Nastassja Simensky often works collaboratively to make writing, place-specific performances, events, sound work and films as a form of ongoing fieldwork. Leaky Transmissions is a body of artwork and research Nastassja is developing through a PhD at the Slade exploring changing land-use and the potential of collaborative fieldwork involving artists and archaeologists. Works from this commission will inform Simensky's inclusion in the group exhibition 'Receiver' at Focal Point Gallery from 2nd October to 23rd December 2022.

Rebecca Lee is a musician, composer, and sound practitioner producing performance, sound works, projects, and publications, with a particular focus on narrative, time and collaborative methods. She often works long term with place, draws on written forms, and uses improvisation, scores, and DIY approaches to combine musical materials, forms, or skills.

https://www.fpg.org.uk/exhibition/rings-on-water/

FPG Sounds: Nastassja Simensky and Rebecca Lee, ’Lower Field’

Focal Point Gallery is pleased to announce the tenth commission as part of ‘FPG Sounds’, an online project to support the development of new sound works by artists from or based in Southend-on-Sea.

For their contribution to Focal Point Gallery’s experimental sound programme artist’s Nastassja Simensky and Rebecca Lee present Rings on Water. The commission for Focal Point Gallery continues Nastassja and Rebecca’s previous collaborations and draws on their shared interest in time, listening, material culture and land-use. The new audio work takes the form of a collection of sonic fieldnotes and includes field recordings, amateur radio and writing from Leaky Transmissions, Nastassja’s ongoing research and work in Bradwell and the Blackwater Estuary.

Many types of human transmission comingle and leave their mark on the Estuary, which is itself an increasingly regulated and privatised space. Cellular networks coalesce with wireless connections, electrical substations with Bluetooth signal, slow-scan television with ham radio transmissions. High-frequency short wavelengths of irradiated graphite within Bradwell A Power Station occupy the opposite end of radio spectrum to the long wavelengths of amateur radio and VLF signals generated by thunderstorms and solar weather. Non-human forces persist, from the Estuary's conductive geology, to sputtering background radiation, to the Earth's vast and sweeping electromagnetic fields.

Rings on Water uses a variety of recording and transmission technologies, from FM radio, magnetic tape, coil receivers, hydrophones and contact mics to traverse the protected saltmarshes and shale banks of the Dengie Peninsular and industrial arable land. Slow Scan Television (SSTV) and the politics of ‘radio’ as a means of transmission, collision, translation and interference are used to consider the material legacies of changing land-use and energy production in the Blackwater Estuary. SSTV is a picture transmission method, used mainly by amateur radio operators, to transmit and receive static pictures over the radio spectrum.

About the artists: 

Nastassja Simensky often works collaboratively to make writing, place-specific performances, events, sound work and films as a form of ongoing fieldwork. Leaky Transmissions is a body of artwork and research Nastassja is developing through a PhD at the Slade exploring changing land-use and the potential of collaborative fieldwork involving artists and archaeologists. Works from this commission will inform Simensky's inclusion in the group exhibition 'Receiver' at Focal Point Gallery from 2nd October to 23rd December 2022.

Rebecca Lee is a musician, composer, and sound practitioner producing performance, sound works, projects, and publications, with a particular focus on narrative, time and collaborative methods. She often works long term with place, draws on written forms, and uses improvisation, scores, and DIY approaches to combine musical materials, forms, or skills.

https://www.fpg.org.uk/exhibition/rings-on-water/