Hilbre Independent Biennial Artists
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'Drawing with Water'
Dr Joanna Leah
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'Leading Curator of Hilbre Independent Biennial'.
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Artist/Researcher in Expanding Drawing and Spatial Practices, Senior Lecturer, Contextual Studies Art & Design, Leeds School of Arts, Leeds Becket University.
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Her Practice research explores the body space developing choreographic and embodied practices producing drawings, installation and performance. Central to her practice is line-making; lines mediated by the body as ways to draw out encounters with specific sites.In a parallel practice of drawing and performance her work occupies tracing and drawing out correspondences to produce what she terms blublilds.
Joanna will be conducting movement analysis of birds in relation to the tides and estuary convergences at Hilbre culminating in a body of drawings, drawing performances and films.
www.joannahleah.com
Instagram:@joannaLeah_art
twitter: twitter.com/Joannahleah7
'Blue Carrier'
Small Running Title
Terry Duffy
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Founder & CEO of BADA
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Founder of the Hilbre Centre of Art, Science and Sustainability
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Trustee of HCLT (Hilbre Community Land Trust)
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Lead Artist 'Drawing out Hilbre Archipelago' Project 2025
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"For too long as individuals and communities we have disrespected the integrity of the earth. It is now time to demonstrate and express through art how we can reconsider this reality".
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The research, experimentation action and outcome will be to interact with the mud, sea, sand, sandstone and weather of Hilbre over-projecting with the realities of todays wastage and exploitation of the world's resources.
www.terryduffy.info
Facebook: terryduffy
Instagram:@terryduffy.art
Hilbre Island
'Porthcothan Resurrection'
Sarah Adams
I will be drawing on site, with a particular focus on the long term effects of weathering and coastal erosion on the intertidal zone. These will form part of a wider project, 'Ghosts', bringing together archive material and observational work to document the process of change in a dynamic environment.
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www.sarahadams.studio
Instagram: @sarahadams.studio
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'Tidal Pool, Trevose'
'Ecosystems'
Luciana Hermida
Mixed media artist and postgraduate student of MA Art in Science at Liverpool John Moores University, exploring human nature.
For 'Drawing Out Hilbre', Luciana will involve the local community through art-science workshops where people will have the opportunity to explore the geomorphology of the Hilbre archipelago through art, uncovering what is often overlooked. These activities and the outcomes will inform the deep mapping of the island, alongside the creation of mixed media legacy artworks to be exhibited on Hilbre's Buoysmaster's workshop from 17th June 2025 - 25th June 2025.
Luciana also led a creative expedition to Hilbre last year as part of the National festival of Humanities 'Being Human' 2024. This included the creation of an audio guided tour of the island, workshops and poetry performance. This event was supported by BADA.
www.re-imagining-ecosystems.com/re-imagining-hilbre
Instagram:@luhermida.art
''Cartography'
'Nighty'
Ilona Skladzien
By using materials sourced from the island, I plan to create a series of works exploring the history of monastic activity on Hilbre'​
www.ilonaskladzien.com
Instagram:@ilonaskladzien
'Nighty detail'
'Untethered 2'
Barbara Cheney
I am interested in small islands and their vulnerability to being overwhelmed by seawater; and how different bodies of water meet.
Untethered I and II were created in response to time spent at Porlock, North Somerset. During various Spring tides, I arranged it so that I was ‘marooned’ at high tide and on one occasion, I crawled out to the end of a long grass-topped wall where it had fast-flowing high tidal waters on three sides, and I lay there to absorb the sensations of the water rising around me. Porlock has the second largest tidal range in the world and Hilbre Island also has a wide tidal range, and I am looking forward to working on/with this island.
Instagram: barbaracheneyart
'Untethered 1'
'A week in January'
Felicity Clear
'Drawing The Atmosphere Over Hilbre'
Felicity Clear will bring her portable weather station to Hilbre in July to measure, document and map local wind conditions and will make exploratory drawings that from this information, that combine a scientific and experimental approach. These drawings will be extended on Hilbre together with other drawings made from internet data gathered from local weather stations.
www.felicityclear.com
Instagram:@felicity_clear_art
'Gust in Detail'
'Alex Europaeus'
'Rubis Frutic'
Ling Warlow
Time to be spent observing, sketching, photograph the unique flora of Hilbre, creating written and visual records of both anatomy and colour - information hard to glean from flat representations - allowing further work on botanically accurate sculpture recreations.
www.paperbydragonfly.com
Instagram: @paperbydragonfly
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'Golden Slit Mud Spill'
'Be Wild'
Agnes Becker
I make work with the land that rekindles our reverence for the natural world. At Hilbre, I'm interested in exploring the meeting of The Mersey and the sea, making marks with local vegetation and mud while exploring ancient connections to land through the St Hildeburgh pilgrimage site.
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www.wearestardust.uk
Instagram: @wearestardust
'Still Video 2024'
'AIGONZ'
Adam Cain
"Adam Cain will explore the Japanese concept of Mono no aware, capturing site-specific transient natural phenomena found on the islands. Using a range of audio-visual techniques, to create an experimental piece reflecting on the islands' continual evolution and subtle beauty."
Instagram: @adamcain.chroma
Youtube: https://youtube.com/@adamcain.chroma?si=
'Horizon'
'Sediment'
Rachel Welford
For Hilbre, Rachel will be exploring natural processes within the intertidal zone and the convergence of river and sea. She takes a collaborative approach to drawing, where artist, subject and media all play their part in ‘making’ a drawing. The receding tide, sedimentation, evaporation and flow will all make their mark within her drawings.
www.rachelwelford.co.uk
Instagram: @rachelwelford
'Hamburg Sensitivites detail'
'Hamburg Sensitivites'
Maryruth Walsh
Title: As I Flew Over the Hilbre Archipelago…
This map explores the layered ecosystems—both visible and hidden—revealing landscapes within landscapes from the perspective of a bird, an insect, or even a fly (one of my altered egos!). I call this process counter-mapping, a departure from conventional cartography, challenging fixed parameters and embracing fluid, shifting viewpoints.
www.maryruthwalsh.org/
Instagram: @maryruth
'Scroll detail'
'Scroll'
Hanne Dale
At Hilbre I am particularly interested in the effects of the changing tides, and materials they might bring them, and the movements of different species on the island. I aim to be open to the encounter with the island , with the rest of theWatermarks Collective, as well as documenting and drawing on site.
This might take form of a type of personal mapmaking.
www.hannedale.com
Instagram: @hanne.dale
'Stratumland #1
'Stratumland detail'
Amanda Oliphant- Contemporary Artist
My work is a response to distinctive patterns exposed through time that I encounter whilst walking through the landscape. They reflect sensations of footsteps upon timeless trodden paths, hidden layers and roots captured through a degree of abstraction​ of a surface. Through my paintings I reveal the experience of a landscape that intrigues and challenges me. Using textured mark making and sympathetic tonal values, different elements become an exploration of the natural world. Back in the studio, ideas are transformed into visual stories through recorded words, paint and unique mark-making techniques.
www.amandaoliphant.co.uk
Instagram: @amandaoliphantartist
'Experimental Fieldwork'
Ashley Caruso
​"The Land Between Tides” is a site-specific exploration of the Hilbre Archipelago, recording built form and human traces through site-specific fieldwork. Using analogue and digital experimental processes, an artist publication will document the island’s evolving landscape as a poetic archive.
Instagram: @storeandarchivedesignstudio
Website: http://www.storeandarchive.com/
'Drone Fieldwork'
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'Immersion' (I dream of drowning)
Anne-Marie Atkinson
My practice engages with water's fluid, unpredictable nature. Water's resistance to control and dual role as life-giving and destructive mirrors the collaborative impulse in my wider practice. In conversation with Watermarks, I will explore points of intersection - where the waters of the Mersey and the Dee converge, and where water meets the shore of Hilbre - to develop a new series of drawings and collages reflecting on our evolving relationship with land and where ecological precarity intersects with human vulnerability.
www.annemarieatkinson.co.uk
Instagram: @annemarie_atkinson
'Recent Collages'
'Drawing with Water'
Gillian Dyson
My performance artwork responds to investigations of the tide, the push and pull of female reproductive life cycles and communal sense of time passing. My inspiration will be movement and stillness of the tideline, and materials and animals found there.
www.gilliandyson.co.uk
'Untitled Performance Research.' Experimental sited Butoh performance. Dale Beach, Pembrokeshire.
'Pico, Acores'
Ana Leonor Rodrigues
"Maps of the Earth, the islands."
My work in drawing has an expanded character and integrates photos, prints, and my body's interaction with the landscape—walking may become drawing, and drawing may become walking. Also, I have been working on a project since 2018: the maps of an Earth to be after the "future". More recently, this project took a turn, and I began exploring small islands that became part of those maps, such as climbing the Vulcano of the island of Pico in Azoren (the photos I sent). I expect to go to Fogo in Cap Verde in November.
When in Hilbre, I intend to walk on the allowed paths. These walks include taking pictures, filming with a tiny camera (a GoPro), and drawing. Later, this work on Hilbre may be exhibited but will also become part of the Atlas of an Earth to Be.
https://analeonorrodrigues.myportfolio.com
Instagram:@analeonormrodrigues
'Maps of the Earth, part III
'Sommer Atelier 'Hannova' 1991
Robin Blackledge
I first visited Hilbre 1989 as an art student and I am excited to be able to partake in this project years later.
Research on Hilbre, will allow me freedom to return to an intuitive working progress I used in my early career as a performance artist, responding physically, listening, watching, documenting & utilising the body, live art & found sound.
Instagram:@rjbliveart
Instagram: @floatdata
'Fushion 2'
'Breathe'
Cliff Hughes
My product for the BADA Hilbre Independents Liverpool Biennial will be site and project-specific.
The starting point will be introspective, an investigation of the state change affected in one's self when crossing the sands to Hilbre and spending time there. Time moves at a different pace, non-linear.
Developing from this I will draw on the island's physical environment, its buildings and any rituals of its inhabitants I can uncover or imagine. Hilbre's history and found artefacts will also be sources of enquiry.
The work is likely to include two-and three-dimensional realisations, written studies, time based pieces, and performances.
'Crossing the Sands'
'Alex Europaeus'
Paddy Rogers
As part of this year's Independents Biennial, Material Matters artist and filmmaker Patric Rogers will undertake a week-long residency on Hilbre Island this September, immersing himself in the island's haunting atmosphere and enigmatic past to investigate the enduring legend of the long-forgotten lost crown of Hilbre. The residency will serve as a key research phase for Patric's forthcoming feature film, set entirely on the island and scheduled to begin production in late 2025/early 2026. The film will explore the myth of the cursed crown said to lie buried beneath Hilbre's windswept landscape - a story that has echoed across centuries through fragments of folklore, lost records, and whispered superstition. Rooted in speculative history, pataphysical horror and ghost story tradition, the project seeks to dissolve the line between historical truth and imagined memory. As part of the residency, Patric will host a public evening of storytelling on the island, offering a rare chance to hear unearthed tales, fictional testimonies and spectral narratives in the spirit of M.R. Jame, inviting participants to step inside the legend and, perhaps, carry a piece of it away of them.
www.patricrogers.co.uk
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'Wild rumpus residency'
Mother Collective
(M)other collective will inhabit Hilbre as part of their research for "(M)other Wild", a series of new works, exhibited outdoors, that explore the instinctual knowledge about the balance of natural life cycles that are endangered by modern society.
Adam Thomas
Adam is a practitioner in sound, audio, acoustics and noise. He intends to capture field recordings from the archipelago’s natural location and process these in time to explore the hidden textures that exist within the natural soundscape. Exploring how the perception of time can change when out on the tidal islands, and putting a lens on some of the quieter, unnoticed sounds that exist in the ecology and environment.​
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Nicholas Shearon
Nick Shearon is a zine maker, performance artist, and illustrator. In 2019 he launched the social club Zineophilia and has worked with organisations like Leeds Library, Leeds 2023, and Thought Bubble. Since 2023 he has been researching a PhD into the use of zines and participatory culture to improve mental wellbeing.
Independent Biennial - 'Drawing Out Hilbre Archipelago' Proposal
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We are excited to announce a 2nd call for proposals for the Independents Biennial 2025, focusing on Hilbre Island, the largest island within the Wirral Peninsula Archipelago. We invite national and international artists to submit proposals that address one or more of the 3 categories below:
1. Workshops
There will be a workshop space available in the Trinity Buoy Masters House, recently acquired by HCLT (Hilbre Community Land Trust). Workshops should address a focussed theme. Please see a suggestion of themes below or suggest an alternative on how you would approach this site. Please indicate the number of participants for this activity. Due to the site being a nature reserve the requirement for a light environmental footprint requires consideration. Island facility access is limited to tide times (see below for link to tide times). Please indicate a charge for your workshop for our advertising purposes and the age range it would be appropriate for.
2. Exhibitions
Please provide an exhibition focus and outline of how you work will evolve and relate to Hilbre and/or one of the themes below. Please include images of your work. Please indicate how you anticipate hanging your work so we can advise accordingly. There is wall, floor and window space. If it is an outdoor installation, please provide supporting images to demonstrate how this might work.
3. Event
This might be participatory, relevant to an existing activity that takes place on Hilbre, a Talk, performance or other. Please provide a clear outline of what you intend to do and how many would feasibly view this. Please specify whether this is to be indoor, outdoor and preferable time of day am, pm or eve. Indicate how long your event takes and provide supporting images or document with your proposal.
ALL proposals need to identify your thematic focus, provide 150-word bio and 500 word proposal outline, time frame, resources anticipated, and facilities anticipated.
Thematic Focus
We encourage explorations that highlight the island’s ecological diversity, cultural heritage, and the interaction between its inhabitants—both living and non-living. Potential thematic foci include, but are not limited to:
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Ecological Interconnections: Investigating relationships between species and their habitats.
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Cultural Heritage and Community Narratives: Engaging with the history and stories that shape Hilbre and its communities.
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Sustainability and Self-Sufficiency: Highlighting practices that support ecological balance and resourcefulness.
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Time and Tides: Exploring the effects of changing tides on the island and its ecosystems.
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Engagement with Nature: Encouraging outdoor participation and interaction with the island’s environment through art.
Funding and Logistics:
Note that there is no artist fee. Artists are responsible for securing funding to support their activities. We will provide letters of support for accepted proposals. Amenities: Hilbre offers basic facilities including a compost toilet and solar electricity. You’ll need to coordinate access based on tide times; check here for relevant schedules: Here
Preparation: Participants are encouraged to be self-sufficient and resourceful. Guidance on suitable clothing and preparation is available. There is a workshop area with an open hard area immediately in front of double doors. There are domestic rooms in the Trinity Buoy Masters House available for exhibition spaces. These are basic and rundown and need to be treated as a non-traditional exhibition site. Your exhibition will have some assistance in setting up but will need to be largely selfsufficient.
SUBMISSION DATE: 07/02/2025
We look forward to receiving your proposals and working together to illuminate the unique story of Hilbre Island during the Independents Biennial 2025!
For submissions and inquiries, please copy us all in: