I’ll use the Dover Prize award to research, develop and create a new transdisciplinary performance installation made in collaboration with creative networks in Darlington using socially engaged forms of participation, exploring the past, present and possible future of the River Skerne using film, experimental photography and photographic printmaking, design, and a new performance that activates the installation. Phase one – archives and collections research: working with local archives at the Darlington Libraries and County Durham Records Office I’ll discover unexplored histories of the Skerne. I’ll research the recent Brightwater Project and River Skerne Restoration Centre learning more about the river’s ecologies and the animals living in and on the Skerne. I’ll use photo and text based archival materials and my own photography exploring the Skerne to create digital collages for a collection of new experimental prints and designs for them to be displayed. Phase two – socially engaged forms of participation with local communities and networks: I’ll facilitate a series of workshops in different formats. Informal presentations of my research with communities will invite them to learn about my work and share their lived experiences and knowledge of the river through stories, photos and videos revealing how the river shapes their lives in Darlington. Guided walks exploring the experiential aspects of the river to create poetry and choreographic and performative interventions onsite. Stories, photos, videos, and poetry will be collected from workshops, and choreographic site-sensitive interventions will be recorded and become materials for my film and its original score. Materials for the performance activating the space will come from these activities too, and the performance may feature an ensemble of community participants if this is something they’d like to participate in. Phase three: making the installation, a portrait of the Skerne in film, sound, print, design, and performance animating its past and present impact on local ecological communities speculating on the potential future of the river communities. I’ll sustain my practice and elevate my work innovating at the forefront of socially and ecologically engaged artworks in ways that might not otherwise be possible without the support of this ward now.
Invited to be the inaugural V&A East X Bow Arts Artist Fellow (2023-24) and the inaugural V&A East Storehouse artist in residence (forthcoming June 2025), as well as completing various national and international residencies, and national site-sensitive public art commissions, my practice is reaching an exciting point of elevation and visibility. Supporters across gallery, museum, creative arts, and community and independent cultural teams are following where my work is being hosted and the transformative and innovative work that I’m being supported to make with diverse communities, bridging socially engaged forms and gallery and museum curation, exhibitions, and performances. I’ll use my situated practice to create artworks in collaboration with Darlington’s creative networks highlighting the creative activity already happening there through my varied research, facilitated workshop activities, and participation in the creation of my work cementing connections between these networks. Darlington will be the first to present the work I’ll make and I foresee the legacy of this work becoming part of larger installations exploring water networks connecting the UK to other global regions – it’s exciting to think that the work I create and the networks I enhance in Darlington through this award connect to broader research interests and future exhibitions.
I’m an artist, dancer, writer, and teacher of Caribbean heritage creating performance, installation, design, and public art with collaborative socially engaged forms. Learning how to think, do, and be differently, manifesting in a multitude of ways and at a variety of levels, my transdisciplinary work connects situated critical spatial practices and socially engaged forms with gallery and museum curation, exhibitions, and performances. My work is characterised by imagination, technical divergence and experimentation, pragmatism, and more-than-rational, vast and subtle poetic gestures with my body. My background in human rights, non-profit, education, government public services, social housing, and as a carer informs my ethics making, curating, teaching, and working with archives and collections, and technology. My awards include Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice and Jerwood Foundation’s Jerwood New Work Fund, and the Gill Clarke Bursary from Independent Dance, Siobhan Davies Studios, London, among others. I was the inaugural V&A East X Bow Arts Artist Fellow: Local ecologies and materials in Newham, working with the Victoria & Albert Research Institute (VARI) and V&A Archives and Collections to create a site-sensitive installation with photography, print, design, and new writing, and curated the expert panel discussion series ‘Loose Ends’ hosted by the department of Architecture of Visual Art at the University of East London. Recent exhibitions include the group shows Soho Connections at Bow Arts Shaftesbury Avenue (2025), Battenberg II The Art of performance at WAY OUT EAST Gallery, London (2024), and my solo presentation for V&A East, ‘Live in room’ (2024), at Royal Albert Wharf, London. Recent performances include ‘Intertubercular Groove’ (2025) at DES BAINS, London, and my curated performance programme Samples and Extended Plays: Recomposing the Archive at Bow Arts 125 Shaftesbury Avenue (2025. I’ll be the inaugural V&A East Storehouse artist in residence in June, culminating in the curation of objects from the Storehouse collections and a new live performance lecture articulating my research and animating my curation of objects at the Storehouse in July 2025.
I have a BA First Class Honours degree in Dance, Theatre, and professional Practice from Coventry University (2010) and graduated with an MFA in Dance Creative Practice from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance and Independent Dance, Siobhan Davies Studios, London (2017) with the support of a full Leverhulme Performing Arts Scholarship. I have participated in alternative education programmes. I’m a CONSTELLATIONS 2020-21 alumni developing collaborative and socially engaged practices with UP Projects and Flat Time House in London, and an Art School Plus alumni trained and supported to develop unique art projects within a wider social context.
My awards and grants to date include: V&A East X Bow Arts Artist Fellowship Local ecologies and materials in Newham (2023-24); Developing Your Creative Practice Arts Council England (2023); Jerwood New Work Fund Jerwood Arts (2023); TIME SPACE MONEY bursary a-n The Artists Information Company (2022); Jerwood Bursary Jerwood Arts (2020); Leverhulme Performing Arts Scholarship Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (2015-2017).
In 2025 I curated and performed in Samples and Extended Plays: Recomposing the Archive at Bow Arts 125 Shaftesbury Avenue space as part of my artist studio residency (2024-25), producing and presenting performance artists in residence and my own work. During exhibitions with Hypha Studios and Phoenix Art Space I designed, curated and facilitated a series of workshops for diverse publics from various communities to engage with my work. I have facilitated artist development and participatory arts and learning programmes nationally and internationally. I co-designed and facilitated Camden Art Centre’s Transformative Futures Youth Collective programme from 2021-23, co-curating the annual Transformative Futures Takeover of exhibitions and events in the building, garden and Gallery 3. I co-teaching Destination Unknown 2023 artist development programme in Roermond, NL exploring synergies and correlations between artistic practices working with site, sound, materials and people in relation to the exhibition making in built environment. The writing, performance and spatial practice collective I co-founded in 2022 with artists Sophie Seita, Florence Uniacke, Abigail Nocon, and Erin Robinsong, Readings and Rituals, were commissioned to create performances in a range of contexts by Newham Word Festival, Large Glass Gallery London, and Independent Dance (all 2022).
I have been commissioned to create temporary and permanent public artworks in the UK, and to perform, exhibit, and publish writing in print and online nationally and internationally. Public artworks include Glow Home (2024) commissioned by Culture Within Newham supported by Art School Plus for Beckton Globe Library, London (permanent), and Still life (2023-24) commissioned by Devonshire Collective and Eastbourne ALIVE to celebrate the 2023 Turner Prize. Commissioned published writing includes the poem Supercritical, A Psalm in A Love Affair published by TM & ATLAS Projectos, London, 2023. Online writing commissions include DisSolution for Daniel Lie and Jupiter Artland (2021), Diaphanous for Pleasure Ground at Ingestre Orangery commissioned with funds from Arts Council England (2022). The writing, performance and spatial practice collective I founded in 2022, Readings and Rituals, were commissioned by Newham Word Festival, Large Glass Gallery London, and Independent Dance (all 2022).
My work has been featured online by the V&A Museum and the V&A Research Institute, Bow Arts Artist spotlight, Culture Within Newham, Jerwood Arts (now Jerwood Foundation), a-n the artist’s network, Open Space Contemporary, UNIDEE Residency programs CITTADELLARTE – Fondazione Pistoletto. Features are mostly interviews focussing on my work and practice.
2025 (forthcoming) Inaugural V&A East Storehouse Residency
2025 125 Shaftesbury Avenue Artist Studio Residency, Bow Arts
2024 Tom Pope Studio Hastings, DYCP Arts Council England
2024 UNIDEE residency programs CITTADELLARTE – FONDAZIONE PISTOLETTO
2023-24 V&A X Bow Arts Artist Fellowship: Local ecologies and materials in Newham
2023 Art School Plus
2022 Hypha Studios Residency & London Borough of Waltham Forest
2022 UNITe Jerwood Arts and g39 Artist Studio Residency, Cardiff
2021 Pleasure Ground Ingestre Orangery, Arts Council England
2021 Percolate Residency Dance Art Journal, Siobhan Davies Studios
2019 Collectivism Residency Haarlem Artspace
These residencies helped me to develop and refine my practice to where I am now, connecting situated critical spatial practices with socially engaged forms and gallery and museum curation, exhibitions and performance. They also enabled me to learn and develop new skills across design, printmaking, photography, painting, sculpture, installation and performance making with collaborative socially and ecologically engaged forms. And I learned how to work with curators and programme managers supporting my development to get the very best out of these residencies and fellowships. I also learned how to work with archives and collections in innovative ways connecting broader audiences to these. All these experiences will support me in achieving my goals working in Darlington with diverse communities on all levels.
Email: studio@adammoorecreate.com
Address: 38 Wyfold House, Wolvercote Road, London, SE2 9TJ, GB
Local Authority: London borough of Bexley
