Simon Whitehead is a movement artist living with his family in rural west Wales. His practice is improvisatory, in response to the circumstances he finds himself in he makes work that moves in correspondence with land, materials and beings. He begins with, and re-turns to the motile materiality of the body and its agency amongst an assemblage of other forces, flows and matter. He is a maker that moves and has been practicing this relationally-focussed work for over 35 years.
Simon has hosted Locator since 1993, an ongoing experimental workshop researching ecological ideas through movement practice, situated in Tycanol, an ancient sessile oak woodland in Pembrokeshire. He is a member of Maynard Abercych, an interdisciplinary artist collective collaborating on a programme of engaged dance activity in the rural village of Abercych and lower Teifi valley, working through ongoing residencies, the village dance, workshops, local and international partnerships. Currently they are working on a 2 year project AFON, listening to the ways that human life is deeply interwoven with our river systems and considering what it is to make ‘kin’ with these bodies of water at this time.
He has developed the sound work Dulais as a series of ongoing field recordings with his Fender Stratocaster, made on the river near his home since 2006. A limited edition of recent recordings will be launched as an album in early 2025 by experimental music label East Cape Calling.
Exploring what posthumanist thinking means in relation to expanded ecologies of touch he has recently completed a (PaR) PhD at Glasgow University. soft matter is part of this process of research-creation and this project proposes that it is through touch that we understand ourselves to belong to a moving Earth. The book Stitching soft matter was published by shoeless in December 2022.
He is currently working on the R & D project Becoming Lichen produced by Oriel Davies Gallery and supported by ACW Create.
He has recently co-authored Folding one Place Within Another, a Chapter with Carl Lavery in The Routledge Companion to Site Specific Performance, edited by Victoria Hunter and Cathy Turner.
Since 1994 he has collaborated with Melbourne based sound artist Barnaby Oliver, a sample of their work is archived here: Untitled States
Simon is also a Craniosacral therapist, working in his community with people in pain and stress- related illness.
Photo: Martin Roberts