Antony Lyons
~ Ecological & social artist; imagineer; visionaire; catalyst, improvisor, producer
~ Landscapes, waterscapes, liminal zones - poetic journeys in time & space
~ VideoSonic & photographic works; site-specific sculptural installations
~ Film-poems, sound-art, land-art; diverse weavings of art & science; nature & culture
~ Fusions of imagery, audio field-recordings, voices, music, archives
~ Creative explorations, stories & deep-time contemplations; mappings & distillations in/from places
~ Collaborations, dialogues & encounters with other wanderers & wonderers
[ PROJECTS ]
2004-2024
[ LANDSCAPES IN BETWEEN ]
meshes of cultural & ecological transition & recovery: landscapes, ecology, communities, art, tangible & intangible heritage
Knowle West Media Centre, Bristol, 2008
Creative Slow Residency, Quantock Hills, Somerset (Eng), 2007-8
collaboration with poet, Ralph Hoyte
Sheffield (Eng) 2009-10
Creativity Strategy for
Urban Regeneration
[A NOVA Creative Lab project]
THE BOGLE Experience (Silver Path)
Site-Specific Installation & Performance
Grizedale Forest & Sculpture Trail, Cumbria (Eng), 2004
Sheffield (Eng), 2011, Public Art Works
[A NOVA Creative Lab project, linked to Green Ribbons Network]
Competition Runner-Up Entry
Shrewsbury (Eng), 2008
[a NOVA Creative Lab project]
Lincolnshire Coast (Eng), 2011
[a NOVA Creative Lab project]
Competition selection
Slow Residency/ Deep Mapping (Climate Change, Community & Art)
Donegal, Ireland 2010-11
[ ALIVENESS MACHINES ]
landscapes+ creative datascapes+ecology
[ WEATHER-PROOFS ]
art, climate + deep-time geopoetics
Ecology, Technology, Community, Schools
UNESCO North Devon Biosphere Reserve, 2011-12. Collaboration
"Our knowledge of nature and how it works is based on observations. What if we can't see everything? What might we be missing out on? There could be a 'hidden world' out there"
James Wells, CERN, on the search for the Higgs bosun
Urban cycle route transformation, Bristol, 2011 (direction/imagineer)
eco-design, nature-based solutions, eco-consultancy, writings
Creative Research
Newlyn Gallery, Cornwall, 2012
& related fieldwork in France & Portugal, 2022-4 more details soon
FLUID FORESTS, an ecological symphony, experimental performance STROUD FILM FESTIVAL, 2024
COMPLETION OF 'HABITAT-TREASURE HOUSE Land Art Commission, Portugal
WATERSHED Exhibition group show, MAC Birmingham (collaboration with Nikki Sheth)
UNLIT PATH EXHIBITION group show; Hardwick Gallery (Terrains Vagues & Slow Flows)
WILD COA SYMPHONY Portugal; eco-social residency, featured project, ELSP
ENDANGERED LANDSCAPES Artist Residency begins; Rewilding Portugal & ELSP
SARGASSO SISTERS Short Eco-Poetic Film selected for FIIN 2021 Film Festival, Portugal
INSIDE THE OUTSIDE Online Curated Photography Gallery (Lethality and Vulnerability)
ARTEFACT PROJECTS: short video-sonic works, Ten Acres of Sound festival Birmingham
ARTICLE IN KONESH SPACE JOURNAL (Creative reflections on Côa Valley, Portugal))
CHAPTERS IN HERITAGE FUTURES BOOK (e-pub, free) Lead Artist writings
NATIONAL TRUST Artist Residency Exhibition, Orford Ness (Sensitive Chaos)
[ ECO-DESIGN:
CREATIVE PLACEs + LANDSCAPE ]
[ SLOW TRACKS + PATHWAYS ]
movements, journeys, geopoetic assemblages
Geopoetic sound-work/intermedia residency at Binaural-Nodar, Portugal, 2013
Rural Arts
[ CO-CREATIVE COLLECTIVES ]
new perspectives, recombinations, collaborations, liminal settings & sonic alchemies
[ DEISEAL ]
Ireland - ancient echoes : new vibes
[ OUT OF PLACE ]
layerings, creative mappings, archives, delvings, fossickings
PEAT-Land-ings
Creative Research, in progress
more details soon
My interests lie in activating fresh dialogues, insights and possibilities - through extended involvements with places, landscape processes and human activities, especially in the contexts of current ecological and social challenges and pressures. I am drawn to the liminal and atmospheric watery settings of rivers, lakes, coasts; the shared ecological 'commons'; and to edgelands, wastelands, abandoned sites - all places that can spark inspirations for future paths. My projects prompt conversations between insider (local) and outsider (itinerant) perspectives and weave together past, present and future imaginations. I describe my creative approach as both ‘geopoetic’ and 'deep mapping'.
With a background in eco/geo-sciences and landscape studies, my creative practice has a hybrid quality, braiding art and science approaches. Concepts of flow and deep-time are central, as is an interest in observing the world at different, fractal, scales. For me, spirit-of-place is linked to cross-cultural and intergenerational exchange - dynamic streams of knowledge, stories, memories, metaphors, dreams. Research and production methods are based on extensive on-the-ground sensing, absorbing and then assembling video-sonic content, sculptural materials, archives, and other findings. Resulting site-specific works can include film-poems and installation spaces, usually developed during artist residencies. I have collaborated with many academic research projects, introducing creative experiments, provocations and alternative documentary processes.
Some collaborations are carried out in the context of the NOVA Creative Lab
Creative Research Residency & installation
Wheal Martyn Museum, Cornwall, 2018
Lead Artist - Senior Creative Fellow
International, 2015-2019
Creative research, documentation, residencies
Artist residency & installation works
National Trust & Heritage Futures, 2019
Creative Research, Public Art Sculptural Works, Limerick County (Ire), 2010 (a Deiseal project)
Exploratory Creative-Research Residency
& video works, Grand Canyon, USA, 2011
[ WATER DREAMINGS ]
flows, liminality & eco-cultural creative explorations
An evolving film-poem project, 2015-19
Part of the 'Submerged (Drowned Lands)'project
WILD WATERS, HIDDEN WATERS & HYDROCITIZENSHIP
Lead Artist, creative research
AHRC & Nova Creative Lab/Bristol
SUBMERGED (Drowned Lands): A Long View
Collaborative research for installation works
in the Somerset Levels, England
SABRINA DREAMING (Severn Estuary Tidelands)
Creative-Research Artist Residency, with CCRI,
University of Gloucestershire (Eng), 2014-16
Participation in the 'Ten Acres Of Sound' Festival, Birmingham in 2020. 'Also Listening With My Eyes' installation (based on Elan Valley artist residency)
Detail from print-on-fabric installation work - Quantock Dreaming, 2008
[ HERE COMMONS EVERYBODY ]
Communities, Creative Land Futures + Eco-Commons
partnership projects, 2021-23
Working with multiple partners & locations. Pilot project co-funded by CCRI & Arts Council England. Themes of culture, ecology, place attachment & land equity.
LONG EXPOSURE: ELAN VALLEY, WALES
Artist-residency hosted by the Elan Links heritage programme. Four season investigations of land, water, farming, ecology, dams, pipelines & more.
Artist-residency hosted by Rewilding Portugal & the Endangered Landscapes Programme. Investigations in preparation for a video-sonic work titled 'Wild Coa Symphony'.
"‘To navigate against the current, these rare qualities are needed: a spirit of adventure, courage, perseverance and passion’
Nise da Silveira
RECENT HIGHLIGHTS =>