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By Tara Bell / All photos are from the ‘Only When I Fish’ collection, shot by Poppy Davenport and designed by Ella Davenport
Whilst studying, travelling, and working in different cities, countries, and hemispheres for the past four years, I found my own ways to discover the beating heart of a place and immerse myself within its rhythm. For me, feelings of ‘Home’ were created through what I let myself find and be involved in, and by learning about a place’s interdependent networks of artists and projects. Now that I have moved back to the city where I spent the first eighteen years of my life, I want to continue to let myself feel inspired and surprised, and to translate these ways of seeing and being in a place, even if this one is no longer new to me. In this editorial corner, I will be chatting to local people about their lives and projects sewn into the city’s fabric, and relearning Southsea itself in the process.
I spoke with Poppy Davenport, a wonderful artist and friend, who is living and working here in between studying fashion communication at Central Saint Martins in London. Through performance, photography and video, her intuitive and multidisciplinary practice explores ‘themes of human connection, identity and perception’ and the ‘narrative complexities of everyday life’, examining how we curate our appearances and choose to navigate the world, and how this shifts alongside the places and people we are surrounded by. One project, shot in collaboration with her coursemates on film, captures characters walking from the sea onto the beach, clothed in leopard skin boots, blazers, briefcases, and feathered hats, marking the remnants that survived from a shipwreck. As I see it, they are entering, or re-entering, a place completely readorned and at odds with the surroundings, covered in artifacts carried over from the story they left behind, or that fell apart of its own volition.
When we return somewhere that we existed in before, the imprints that time and place have made on our shifting identities become clear. Outside the environment they were born in, we see how our tastes and creative expressions have changed, a little like arriving from a washed up voyage. What will emerge from the pieces? What will our return reveal? What will the different surroundings, networks, reactions lead us to create, or become? How will this be reflected in the art itself?
Southsea’s coastal landscape inevitably trickles into locally-made projects. Poppy’s sister Ella’s project ‘Only When I Fish’ used dried-out fish skins given by Johnson’s fish market for a collection centred on fish’s inability to wear polo necks, with the skins wrapping around the models’ heads and necks. Poppy also mentioned plans to create a swan boat for Canoe Lake using her Grandad’s tools that she recently inherited, referencing the city’s crafting history.
Artistic projects will always be intertwined with the materials, land, and people that they are made alongside. Poppy and I spoke about the beauty of creative collaboration, in spaces where a range of interests, tastes, and expressions can be explored; and in a smaller place like Southsea, artists with different interests are likely to know one another and come together, adding diverse elements to each project. I would love to continue to discover these networks; if you would like to chat with me about your Southsea-based art practice, across any creative medium, contact info@southsealifestyle or my instagram @tazzystarrr! You can find Poppy on poppydavenports.cargo.site or @missflippyflop on instagram.
Posted in: Art & Culture
