Commissioned artist: Sunken Ecologies, Margate NOW
Sonia’s work ‘Loci’ was a commissioned site-specific project of walking, words and speculative situations in the Sunken Gardens, Margate. The project comprised an installation of oversized plant labels marking lost, potential and never-to-be plant specimens, constructing a ghost gallery of imagined and fantastical flora; artist walks touring the site; and an immersive, ambulatory audio poem responding to the gardens. Find out more about the project and listen to the poem here: https://margatenow.co.uk/sonia-overall/.
Contributing artist: Thread and Word
Thread and Word is a collaborative group set up by the artist Elspeth (Billie) Penfold. The group uses walking and textiles to bring together people who welcome the opportunity to take part in collaborative events highlighting social issues and sharing stories. Sonia’s recent contributions to Thread and Word projects include:
A Refracted View – curating walking prompts with members of East Kent Mencap to produce a deck of creative walking cards, with Margate Bookie and Margate Now. More about the project and cards here.
Not Anymore – a story for The Listening Post, a story soundscape by Lucy Claire. Featured at The Margate Bookie and Wandworth Arts Festival. Listen to the project on Soundcloud.
pause/play – a poem and interactive performance, part of ‘Let’s Take a Moment’, a collaborative sound walk for Gravesend, featured at The Turner Contemporary and Wandsworth Arts Festival. Limited edition artists’ box set and project details here.
ofrendas – responding to texts for Walking with Shrines in Margate – read Sonia’s blog entry describing the process or watch a short documentary about the project by film maker Anna Bowman
bibliocartomancy – walking with cut-up poetry cards, exploring T S Eliot’s The Waste Land for Journeys with the Waste Land at the Turner Contemporary, Margate.
Relics
Sonia’s dramatic work in progress ‘Relics’ was selected for R&D support by The Marlowe Theatre. The play is a post-apocalyptic vision of a waterlogged Kent. Survivors of devastating climate change and a global pandemic try to make sense of ‘Time Before’. A scene from the play was performed at the Roar showcase at the Marlowe Theatre.
Armchair Artist, The Beaney House of Art & Knowledge, Canterbury
Sonia’s Armchair Artist residency involved responsive writing using the museum collections, based on the concept of bricolage, to create a DIY museum of words. Visit posts in Sonia’s residency blog to find out more:
Drama in the dolls’ house – sagas and secrets playing out in miniature
Grave games & serious play – gaming, grave goods and Star Wars figures
Secret messages & hidden text – tracing meaning in found-text fragments
Upstart crow – on plumage and borrowed colour
Shrines, illusions and heterotopias – spaces in spaces
Have writing exercises, will exercise writers – a guerrilla farewell
All photos by Sonia Overall – © Canterbury Museums and Galleries
Previous writing residencies, performances and exhibitions include paper boats and sunken text for ‘Upon a Painted Ocean’ at The Old Lookout Gallery, Broadstairs; cut-ups and knitted words at the Whitstable Oyster Festival; and microfictions at Lounge on the Farm music festival.
