Maddie Exton

The work plays with the idea of ephemerality at the centre of the festival itself. Each year the event gathers people to witness a brief, natural moment: the first sunrise in the UK.

Aerial banners normally share this fleeting quality, appearing only momentarily as they pass overhead towed by a plane. By holding a typically temporary message in place, the work gently extends a passing moment.

Image credit:

Image 1: Adam Barnes

Drawing on visits to twelve galleries and exposure to a range of organisational models, the workshop explored how different curatorial approaches shape programming, access, and sustainability.

Experiences from the course highlighted barriers such as inaccessible planning and classist assumptions. When these reflections were shared publicly, more than forty peers responded with similar accounts. These anonymised experiences formed the basis of a 30‑minute activity mapping them against the Wheel of Power, prompting discussion on what could be made explicit, supported, or changed. Participants identified needs across organisational culture, sector pathways, and workforce development, including more diverse leadership, funded entry routes, and confidence‑building opportunities for emerging and established practitioners.

An audio description of the work is available here.

Mimicking the Hollywood sign, the sculpture spells out the word HOMESTEAD - a nod to the roots of the town's name, which in Old Norse means 'Hlothver and toft' translating to ‘home-stead’. 

Lowestoft is the UK's most easterly point. The decline of fishing and coastal tourism combo'd with the effects of geographic isolation, climate change and second home ownership (1 in 20 of coastal Suffolk houses are second homes) has resulted in steady economic decline since the 60s. It has since attracted a whopping £24 million regeneration project to 'restart' the town (their word not mine). I'm interested in the balance of regeneration and gentrification as well as the connection between old and new in processes like regeneration. It got me thinking about where origin stories sit in imagined futures, and how the hopes from the community often differ from the action of developers.

I wanted to play with the language of cultural iconography, imagining Lowestoft as an infamous, international icon. As always, I'm KINDA taking the piss. Kinda. Though, I'm also aiming to celebrate Lowestoft without changing, or restarting it. Instead: looking back to the start.

Carpentry by Crow Handy Works, scaffolding by East Coast Scaffolding & recycled paint via Re-utilise. Photos 2,4,5 & 6 by Richard Allenby-Pratt (The Suffolk Project).

Participants explored the idea of “future‑proofing” their practice through small, meaningful actions that can support them during periods of uncertainty or transition. Through group discussion, they considered key questions around anti‑capitalist approaches to making: Do we create to sell? How do we define productivity? What does success look like on our own terms?

The practical element of the workshop involved creating affirmation mobiles - hanging sculptural pieces designed to act as companions in studios or making spaces. Each mobile incorporated personal statements, reminders, and values chosen by the participants, functioning as both artworks and tools for self‑support. The making process emphasised care, reflection, and the importance of building environments that nurture creativity rather than pressure it.

By the end of the session, participants had produced individual mobiles that articulated their motivations and priorities as emerging artists. The workshop offered a space to rethink sustainability in creative practice, foregrounding wellbeing, autonomy, and community over traditional markers of achievement.

Participants created their own “VIP Art Critic” badges and costumes to question what authority looks like and how costume can shift who feels entitled to speak about art. The group then re‑wrote real art reviews using only words added to the dictionary in 2024. Terms like nepo baby, barbiecore, girl dinner, and climate breakdown prompted discussions about contemporary language and who gets to shape cultural narratives.

Participants then wrote their own responses to objects in the museum’s collection, working individually and in conversation. The workshop emphasised that criticism can be conversational, personal, and rooted in everyday language rather than exclusive jargon.

To conclude, the teens photographed one another in their “art critic” personas. This workshop is designed to empower young people to write confidently about art, challenge traditional gatekeeping, and experiment with criticism as a creative practice.

The Weight

Cigarette cards from the 1913, cut

Collaborating with sound healer Lola Bartlett, passers‑by were invited to experience a sound bath and to add their own wishes to the fallen tree, continuing a long‑standing tradition of communal hope‑making. 

Coin trees appear at more than forty sites across the UK. The earliest known example stands beside a holy well on Isle Maree in the Scottish Highlands, where pilgrims once left offerings in search of healing. While British coin trees use metal tokens, similar “wish trees” appear across Pagan, Hindu, and Thai traditions, where rags and fabrics are tied to branches as acts of devotion or hope.

The project began with an observation: the UEA campus is full of secluded spots that students and staff claim as “our place.” This artwork aims to create one more; a shared site of reflection and ritual.

filmed performance (full performance available here)

Scream Karaoke is a work made while on residency with SPILL Festival ThinkTank. It explores female rage, prescribed spaces for emotional outlet and anger as solidarity.

studio shots of month long fully funded residency at Antony Gormley’s estate ‘High House’ in February 2022

1. WOUNDS, carved brick

2. SEE YOU SOON, pins, nails, chains.

4. ink, watercolour and smoke drawings.

5. tree shadow drawings, charcoal.

7. carved chalk.

8. All My Love, installation.

One film recreates primal‑scream therapy (John Lennon’s reflection that “you recognise yourself in there” is adopted as the title) while the other stages a silent conversation with the sea by positioning a talking‑therapy chair toward the horizon.

Together, the films explore the tension between internal turbulence and external calm, a characteristic of British culture.

Rituals

masking tape footwork to The Waltz on studio floor. Film /performance/instructions.

When I started my residency at High House, I was thinking a lot about what a studio space is and the idea of artistic discipline. I wanted to set up a sort of studio ritual that I could perform daily as a stepping stone (both physical and mental) between the home and the studio space — something that would push me into a studio state of mind. I started seeing the relationship between artist and practice as dancer and partner. Your practice as a non physical being but a part of you, a sort of mental choreography. To create a visual representation of that, I taped out the footwork to the waltz on my studio floor so that everyday I was dancing with myself, arms cradled as if holding my practice. 

In contrary to the ‘romantic, tortured artist’ in which none of the focus is on the artist’s work, Rituals is about discipline. And understanding that creativity is something to be held gently and nurtured but also to be trained and beaten into submission. I also liked the idea that I could play into the concept of the romantic artist dancing alone while actually employing intentional strict control.

“Grunt. Get to work.”- Walter De Maria, Meaningless Work