Castlefield Gallery Associates Spotlight: Uma Breakdown
Posted on 3 December 2024
This month we have asked Uma Breakdown to contribute to our Castlefield Gallery Associates Spotlight series, in which current Castlefield Gallery Associates share their thoughts on what the programme offers and how it has been useful for them.
Can you tell us a little bit about your practice?
My work is largely about processes that ‘join’, such as love and solidarity; and processes that ‘destabilise’, such as that group joined by love and solidarity performing actions collectively that they couldn’t anticipate individually. I work across a lot of mediums, particularly text, drawing, animation, and video games. Fiction is central to my practice, everything I make is an invitation to collaborate storytelling, in the same manner that the manual for a role playing game is. I have a solo touring exhibition titled Earth AD which is currently winding up to its final showing and so I am picking through all the ideas that have surfaced while I’ve been focused on that over the last three years. I’m currently writing and making work exploring the figure of the doppelganger across the history of horror cinema as a trangender subject.
How did you hear about Castlefield Gallery Associates and why did you want to join?
I’ve known about Castlefield Gallery for a long time and have been following the programme from my home in the North East. I have a disability which affects my ability to travel and meet other artists, so the Associates programme immediately seemed like a good way to cross that boundary. I’m very aware that the UK art scene is not homogenous, that there’s very different cultures and philosophies in different areas so being a remote associate is a way of finding a community based on interests rather than just proximity.
What are you looking forward to most about your coming year’s membership?
I’m currently in an R&D period, thanks to a fellowship from Axis and a residency at the National Glass Centre from AA2A. I’m therefore looking forward to, and trying to make time for, the remote artist development programme that Castlefield Gallery offers. I’ve just signed up for an event on working with the press, which I’m very excited about as it’s something I don’t remotely understand right now! I’m also looking forward to submitting something for the members exhibition. I’ve been trying for a while to make a video game that requires a physical card deck to play, and the members’ show is a perfect whip crack to get me to give that idea some coherence.
Links
Website
umabreakdown.comImages
Banner:
- Uma Breakdown, EARTH AD 2 (installation image), 2023. Image courtesy of the artist.
From left to right, top to bottom:
- Uma Breakdown, The Play, 2023. Image courtesy of the artist.
- Uma Breakdown, Cave Synth, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.
- Uma Breakdown.
