Annis Joslin

If Hope could speak was a poetry and film project at Chalkhill Education Centre, the school within Chalkhill hospital for young people with acute mental health challenges. The project was kicked off by poet Rachel Rooney who generated some poetry around the theme of Hope and Uncertainty. This material was responded to using objects, projections and animations exploring what hope and uncertainty meant for the young people involved. Rachel Rooney developed the material generated and edited by the young people to form a group poem which was combined with the visual material and soundtrack created by the participants in collaboration with Annis.

Artist in residence at Chalkhill Education Centre at Chalkhill Mental Health Hospital. Working with young people between 12 and18 years old exploring video art, animation and photography.

Collaboration with artist Sarah Cole commissioned by PAVILION – a visual arts commissioning organisation in Leeds to work with mothers and carers and their children in Berkhamsted.

The project resulted in the creation of a video work ( which is where our collaboration began) at Ashridge Estate in Hertfordshire. Ashridge’s Golden Valley was designed by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown and this project is part of an ongoing contemporary art programme through which Pavilion is exploring the history and politics of Brown’s work. The project forms part of the Capability Brown Festival 2016, managed by the Landscape Institute and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

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Screen at The Tetley in January 2017:

"Pavilion presents Breath Taking, a new work by artist Sarah Cole and filmmaker Annis Joslin with a group of women and their children. Set in the Golden Valley, Ashridge Estate designed by Capability Brown, the 6-minute film brings poetic play into the natural landscape. Referred to posthumously as ’the omnipotent magician’, Capability Brown’s tropes of distraction, deception and sleight of hand are evidenced in the film: a card shuffle, stem of broccoli and Mylar fabric serve to trick the eye".

Working with Project Art Works and FACT, Liverpool. A three day project utilising FACT's cinema box to create an immersive environment, in response to a forest visit, for series of encounter workshops working with FACT staff and adults with complex needs.  (The project was a research encounter/pre-cursor to the up coming Explorers programme) 

A nine month project finally culminated in the launch of the Giddy Brighton app and exhibition launched as part of Brighton Festival - an opportunity to walk vicariously down memory lane, featuring the personal stories of Brighton & Hove locals who loved, lost and rebelled as teenagers during the 1940-60s. I was lead artist working with pupils from Longhill School, Brighton to help them develop ideas for the app, explore and curate archive photographs and film footage as well as train them to interview and record the lived experience of older people. 

Commissioned by Brighton and Hove Royal Pavilions and Museums to work with residents of Portslade and West Hove neighbourhoods to develop and create a series of photographic and and collage based work  exhibited as part of the exhibition "Downs to Sea - A Slice of Life' which the group curated by choosing art work from the Arts Council Collection. The exhibition ran at Brighton Museum from April 5 - June 15 2014.