Approved: 03.06.2008

Christina Armstrong

Artist, Community worker, Teacher

Approved: 03.06.2008

Christina's practice focuses on areas of land that can be found along the peripheries of our towns and cities, within the spaces aptly named by geographer Marion Shoard as the Edgelands and described by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts in their book of that name, as a kind of no-mans land, a debatable zone, that is complex and mysterious (Farley and Symmons Roberts 2011:6). These unwatched

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Artist Statement

Christina's practice focuses on areas of land that can be found along the peripheries of our towns and cities, within the spaces aptly named by geographer Marion Shoard as the Edgelands and described by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts in their book of that name, as a kind of no-mans land, a debatable zone, that is complex and mysterious (Farley and Symmons Roberts 2011:6). These unwatched and disregarded places that sit along the fringes of our towns and cities - the copses; scrublands; railway lines; bridges; brooks; abandoned quarries all seem a world away from our ideas of the 'real' countryside, and often remain invisible to most of us regardless of their close proximity to our doorsteps. However, it is in these concealed and overlooked spaces that certain things thrive and a true kind of wilderness can be found (Farley and Symmons Roberts 2011). In this ambiguous and often challenging terrain Christina searches out the invisible and an opportunity to discover that which we often choose not to see. Through an engagement with the archaeological discipline and an artistic appropriation of its methods of extracting the secrets of the past, Christina attempts to extract and examine the disregarded and overlooked of the present. Through collecting, drawing, mapping and analyzing the artefacts, monuments and structures that exist within 'active' areas surrounding our built environment, Christina seeks to examine, interpret and present possible narratives that emanate from the data. Christina's methods seek to encounter a fresh vision of this constantly evolving edge landscape and offer a way of reevaluating the sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes intriguing relationships that emerge from within it. As Victor Buchli and Gavin Lucas explain in their book Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past, an archaeology of the contemporary turns the methods back on ourselves and reverses the situation so that the familiar object is made unfamiliar. Through this process objects are made palatable and sanitised by the distancing effect, allowing us to view the subject in more objective terms (Buchli and Lucas 2011:9). Christina's interest is in what the objectifying and alienating process of archaeology enables us to discover about ourselves, from within these places of England that lay our dirty secrets bare (Farley and Symmons Roberts 2011: 10).

CV & Education

Qualifications and training

2019 Continuing Professional Development, Arts 4 Dementia/ Dementia Pathfinders, Barbican Centre, London

2018 Dementia and the Arts: Sharing Practice, Developing Understanding and Enhancing Lives, UCL and Created Out of Mind, accredited by Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) online course

2018 Arts 4 Dementia: Early-Stage Dementia Awareness Training for Arts Facilitators, National Gallery, London 

2011 MA Fine Art , Wimbledon College of Art

2004 BA Fine Art, University of Hertfordshire 

Employment and Work Experience

2019 - ongoing Co-director of Open Art Box CIC, a visual arts organisation running events and courses for people living with early-stage dementia in Hertfordshire

2019 - Joint Project Leader and Arts facilitator for Conversations in Drawing, an eight week course of drawing workshops for people living with dementia and their carers, funded by Arts Council England 

2018 - Arts facilitator for Hertswise Dementia Hubs, Letchworth, Stevenage, Hertford, Buntingford

2017 - ongoing Hertswise Weekly Dementia Hubs, Volunteer, Letchworth Garden City

2017 - ongoing Befriender for Age Uk (Herts), Volunteer, Welwyn Garden City, Herts

Solo exhibitions

2013  Hidden Landscapes, ACE and LGCHF funded project, Letchworth Arts Centre, Letchworth Garden City

2009  Drawn On, Drawn In, Margaret Harvey Gallery, St Albans

Selected group shows 

2014 Letchworth: A Vision of Utopian, curated by Kiera Blakey, commissioned by Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, Letchworth, Hertfordshire 

2012 Always Greener, curated by Rosemary Shirley, PM Gallery and House, Ealing Broadway

2009 Particles, particles, curated by Sam Clift, Surface Gallery, Nottingham

2008 Electric Blue curated by Rita Parente, Bargehouse London

2008 Open Exhibition, Margaret Harvey Gallery, St Albans

2006 Betrayed by the Senses, curated by Rita Parente, Bargehouse, London

2005 Furniture of Sorts, curated by Lynn Cluer, Stoud House Gallery, Stroud

Graduate shows

2011 Wimbledon College of Art Postgraduate Show, Wimbledon College of Art

2004 Degree Show, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield Projects

Projects

2012-13 Hidden Landscapes Project (ACE funded), Letchworth Arts Centre (Aug 2013)

Publications

2013 Hidden Landscapes Project reviewed by Tom Jeffreys, 'The Learned Pig', November 2013

Competitions, prizes and awards 

2008 First Prize (Open Exhibition), Margaret Harvey Gallery, St Albans

2006 Cultural and Creative Award (Open Exhibition), Margaret Harvey Gallery, St Albans