To find one's way anywhere one has to find one's door, just like Alice ....You take too much of one thing and you get too big, then you take too much of another and you get too small. You've got to find your own doorway into things...

(Paula Rego)


CURRENT AND RECENT WORK 

"Reading Water" a collaborative contemplative ecology project over a month exploring the interconnections between The Thames, United Kingdom  and The Nile, Egypt. Developed by Super Cluster and supported by The British Council, November 2022.


Artist in residence research trip to Zagori, Northern Greece, in association with the The Eco Museum and Oika, October 2022.


Motivational Tools, a performance at Biddy FAB Art Bath, 2022 - A staged performance, involving a set of altruistic affirmative actions created to offer the public a sense of their importance and value in a difficult challenging and competitive world. The piece was performed as part of a touring work entitled Office for The Dissemination of Sympathy (2012), and has been reworked and revitalised for Biddy. 


Parliament of Owls online artists research residency, concerning birds, 2022 - Working with Ayatana Biophilium Science School for Artists.


Bird by Bird 2, and An Incomplete Manifesto to you Birds, 2021 - sonic works in two parts, heard on Air Radio, a collaborative radio space created for the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), followed by short video on YouTube.


'An Aqueous Collaboration' 2021 -2022, a collaborative project with Philip Lee developed during lock down. Fortnightly, each artist produced an image or video of an action inspired by two words – WATER, and the other word being a verb.
‘An Aqueous Collaboration' was a playful contemplation of water and its possibilities. All work can be seen on Instagram. In addition the work shown as a short film at Sea Change Bicester Festival Oxfordshire.



An online artists residency Ace Proyecto Residency, Argentina and Lacuna Festivals, 2021 - this residency took place during the lock down, and  resulted in a collaborative video work with Anna Goodchild and Heidi Bergstrom entitled Littoral Zones: the frontiers between. This work was shown at Lacuna Festivals


105 Artists Hands book by Cally Trench, 2018 -2022 - I have writing and images in a publication by Cally Trench, please follow this link to Peculiarity Press for more details. 


Bird by Bird, at Unprecedented, an online exhibition at OVADA, 2021 - An exhibition of collective work created during and in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. I have four A1 photographs entitled Bird by Bird, the photos are part of an ongoing project of gestures, interventions, text and performance work. You can see the work online from The 1st May, please click here


HOMEBOOKS at Overlay Studios, 2021 - A series of handmade books made during lock down. I have three books shown alongside artists Clare CarswellPeta Lloyd and Rhiannon Evans. Thank to CouCou Curations and the support of CREIA::: . 1st - 9th May 11 - 6, at Overlay Studios Spelsbury Rd, Charlbury, Chipping Norton OX7 3LL


Nostos, at A Dangerous Field, Magdalen Road Studios, 16th October - 16th November 20 - Nostos (homecoming), is a collaborative photographic work, working with Vicky Vergou. The work is part of a project concerning how artists use photography to explore or subvert their ‘field’, or to record and research their subject. Due to the pandemic the work was transferred to an online exhibition, the full exhibition will now take place in 2021. Curated and edited by Cally Shadbolt, Catalina Renjifo and Lucas McLaughlin


Visiting Bird at Briefly in Transit, Stephens House & Gardens, London, 2020 - Visiting Bird, was a series of photographs and actions, exploring the grounds of Stephens Gardens in Finchley, through the eyes and experience of a bird. The work is a nod to the 14th century plague doctors mask. Live actions took on the 19th September.  The sculpture trail,  included 10 artists creating a series of artworks acknowledging and responding to the complexity and simplicity of these transitory times. Curated by Rebekah Dean and supported by The Arts Council England. 

research, entitled Life Saving, a series of gestures during a residency located at Three Cliff's Bay in The Gower, South Wales, 2014

Annie Rapstoff is a cross disciplinary artist,  interested in the interrelationship between place and the human experience, often in dialogue with other species. Work may take the form of instructions, performance for the camera and in situ, gestures, interventions, video, stitch and text. Past work has been participatory, collaborative and often process based or ephemeral. Annie questions what we hear, what we feel and what we experience in space, through the body in space. 

Her work has been shown in galleries, at conferences, live art events and in public spaces. Recent work, has included responses to the pandemic including a series of works in which she inhabits masks fabricated into bird extensions. In addition, she is investigating urban and rural geology including red sandstone, using the action of mark making, through rubbing and scarifying. These small works explore surface, decay and imperfection in layers, particularly cracks in pavements, continuing an ongoing concern around fragile surfaces and hidden depths.

Annie has developed workshops with children and adults, she has curated and developed live art events and is particularly interested in working in collaboration with other artists and across disciplines, past collaborations can be seen here.

Valuable words: Allowing for uncertainty, play, meandering through words and ideas, listening to what may be beneath the surface, ecologies of experience in relationship with animals, plants, other objects and the land. 


Collaboration

The involvement of collaboration is essential to Annie's practice, she has worked alongside a botanist, a musician, poets, a highways manager and other artists from various skills backgrounds. The collaborative process, has included co-creating work, such as the film Continuum with artist Vicky Vergou, other collaborative processes might include working together in a residency situation and being in dialogue with each other concerning shared themes or the enhancement of thinking. Collaboration breaks habitual ways of working, offers freedom from lone practice and challenges edges. It can offer a welcome change from being the primary focus and author of ones work and creates opportunities for a more dynamic and democratic way of developing ideas and practice. Alliances and partnerships with non profit organisations, and sectors such as museums, have offered the opportunity to build networks, extend reach to wider audiences and build capacity and networks. This has included working with an artists shop in Abergavenny, The Museum of Domestic Architecture in Cockfosters and The Arts Depot in Finchley.

Intoxicate us with your sweet smelling petrol Bask in the delights of your citroën shimmy Honour them in plastic bags that hang from the trees Pray for those forgotten by the roadside with made to measure flowers Love those who walk the unmapped dead lands Adorn their images in dandelion clocks Praise those who skirt the perimeter fences and come back for more Tempt me with tar sulphate and ammonia Stroke us with the quadraphonic sound of rubber Bathe in the saccharine smell of redevelopment Devote yourselves to the corridors cuttings and embankments Dig deep into her heart and excavate the dumped soil Softly touch the immigrants who transport biodiversity Sing out loud for pollution tolerant colonisers Inhale the sweetness of top soil on her skin Festoon him in things that germinate from fly tipping Dedicate your life to the highways and byways

  • Didcot, England, United Kingdom