Antonia Beard

Info

Antonia is a London based artist with a background in textile design. Her textiles background has had a huge impact on her philosophy to art making. She spent time in Cambodia studying ancient textile techniques at the IKTT - the Institute of Khmer Traditional Textiles. Learning from Kikuo Morimoto and the artisans of the forest village, she understood how traditional textiles embody the landscape of a place, in a process that is deeply linked to the natural habit and cultural interaction. This perspective has fused with her passion for the sweaty, urban dance-floors of London and her upbringing in agricultural Berkshire, to create work that is rooted in the process of experience and material narratives. 2018 has resulted in a series of site specific projects lead by this philosophy, listening carefully to what can be discovered through each scenario, studying the connections that underpin our material and metaphysical existence. Process is used as a way of seeing, preparing the mind to a state of consciousness that directs the work.   

ABOUT

My creative practice started in 2016. It was born from a need to digest distinct and contrasting life experiences in rural England, urban dancefloors and my questions around the exploitation and extraction of resources that arose during my textile studies. I examine notions of presence and being, and challenge modes of living that are built upon methods of exploitation and extraction by working with what I have at any given time and place. Playfully picking up on creative cues gleaned from casual and inquisitive, day to day interactions and details found within the surrounding landscape, architecture and materials. I engage in long-form, creative processes as a means of building an archive of embodied knowledge, to connect personally and collectively to any given moment. Formed, like movements of a dance, my response is often improvised, and transient, yet enduring - speaking to and in full appreciation of the fragility and strength of life.

The understanding of my practice has developed and matured through a series of site-responsive projects in Norfolk, Ireland, Palermo, Venice and Leeds. Often returning to the same places and communities repeatedly. I work with alternative forms of art production that challenge institutional, and hierarchical frameworks, and engage with methods of creative exchange that exist outside of traditional gallery contexts. I am currently drawing upon the culmination of these experiences as a part of my residency, Fossils in the Chalk at Pepys Community Hub, Deptford, 2026-2028.

Catch, Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds, 2023 | Houghton Festival, Houghton Hall, Norfolk, UK, 2017-2023 | The Sustainable Darkroom, London Alternative Photography Collective, UK, 2020 | High House Working Residency, Norfolk, UK, 2020 | On the Edge - Transgression to the Frontier, Groundwork Gallery, Norfolk, UK, 2019 | Tombolo, Lay of the Land, Brow Head, Mizen Peninsula, Ireland, 2019 | The Hidden City, Collateral event of Manifesta 12, Palazzo Abatellis, Palermo, Italy, 2018 | The Persistence of Hearing, Biennale Urbana, Caserma Pepe, Venice, Italy, 2018 | How Did We get here? A Material Exploration, Royal College of Art, London, UK, 2018 | Inner Chaos, Total Refreshment Centre, London, UK, 2017 | The Labour Book, Calle Del Forno, Venice, Italy, 2017 | Open House, Delfina Foundation, London, UK, 2017 | Ra-view, Koncept Gallery, London, UK, 2016

Contact: antoniabeard@proton.me