For the first time in my practice, I am addressing my biography in a short story called The Fence (2025). This is a story about my first day in the UK in 1987: this unusual day involved an undercover detective and an act of kindness that set my life in its current path.
Told today this is a story about borders, moral decisions, generosity, vulnerability and bird conservation. I feel this is the right time to tell this story because it shows the impact of personal and societal choices on people’s lives and the planet.
I would love to create an expanded version as a film/installation/print of The Fence in collaboration with the communities in and around Darlington.
This is a step-change in my work: in the use of autobiographical content; formally through a collaboration with animators and a professional crew; in scale because I would like for many local people as possible to come together as co-creators and contributors.
In this way The Fence will not be simply a script or score, but a catalyst to explore locations, wildlife and bird migrations, identity, self-representation, performative methods, animation processes.
The funding would support the production of this work (video production, materials) post-production (animation), exhibition, a limited run newspaper publication, travel and fee. It will be met with in kind contribution of local accommodation, equipment, project management and development, graphic design, subsistence expenses.
‘Made in’ Darlington this production will feature local people, natural and urban locations. Participation and collaboration are important in my practice since creative practices can generate a safe space where we can be together, share fun or difficult conversations, experience beauty and learn.
My story took place in 1987 on my first day of arrival in the UK and is as a parable it can be created and developed anywhere. I would be particularly delighted to work with the local communities because I have studied and resided in Yorkshire where I found warm and welcoming friends I am in touch to this date. Through local co-authoring the piece will be able to travel to UK and international locations.
My practice is conceived as a space where we can come together, co-learn and have conversations about contemporary concerns: from how to engage with our living planet ethically to the decolonialisation of cultural practices.
With this goal in mind I tend to work with communities, museums and public agencies rather than commercially.
My practice is research based and collaborative, engaging with the public and specialists according to the parameters of each project. In twenty years of professional experience I have developed a formal language that uses a range of media such as analogue photography, audio, filmmaking, installation and participatory performance. I recently created a project space on a balcony in the South of Italy design to bring local and international collaborations and tease what we mean by public space and what physical and virtual balcony can do in this respect. My launch featured the mother of environmentalism in the West: Rachel Carson with Silent Spring (1962),
@thebalconyprojectceglie. This project is partly inspired by a recentl commission called Collaborative Toponymy where I co-created 300 street names for a new town to be built in Essex, research and collaboration were core in this site-specific project and I enjoyed immesely working with the land and diverse communties from the ages of 8 to 90. The Little Book of Answers (2015 Tate Modern, ArtNight 2018, 2017 Turner Contemporary, 2018 IAVC Conference, Manchester Central Library 2017, 2017 Workweek Prize, 2017 Mostyn Open etc.) addresses citizenship praxis via a book featuring the correct answers of the citizenship test used as a score for a range of participatory works. Speak Robert (2017 Venice Biennale, 2017 Tate Exchange) is a project about botany and colonialism prompted by the re-emergence of the East India Company as a luxury tea brand. In the first iterations the public interacts with a lesson in Chinese and in the second with a performed history of the EIC. The Difference between a Bird and a Plane (in three episodes), (25’, 2020) is an essay film partly shot in Canada and featuring writing, performance and analogue photography. The film responds to the climate crisis by addressing the issue of human exceptionalism when it comes to the living planet.
Do you have a degree in visual or applied arts at undergraduate and/or post-graduate level? Please provide details. (200 words)
2011 PhD in Fine Art, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London.
In MUVE (Museum of Ventriloquial Objects) I focussed on the role, politics and construction of the voice in fine art moving image.
1999 MA Fine Art Photography, Royal College of Art, London.
1997 First Class BA Fine Art, University of Leeds.
1992 IULM, Milan (whilst in the UK) Comparative Modern Languages & Literatures (while in the UK).
2011 PhD in Fine Art, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London.
In MUVE (Museum of Ventriloquial Objects) I focussed on the role, politics and construction of the voice in fine art moving image.
1999 MA Fine Art Photography, Royal College of Art, London.
1997 First Class BA Fine Art, University of Leeds.
1992 IULM, Milan (whilst in the UK) Comparative Modern Languages & Literatures (while in the UK).
2017 Winner of Artists’ Pavilion Commission at the Venice Biennale 2016 Winner of Workweek Prize
2015/16 AA2A Brighton College Residency
2013 Arts Council of England Small Grant Award
2012 Wellcome Trust Art Award
2009 SkillSet Training Award – UCL Graduate Travel Conference Award 2007 AHRC PhD Funding Research Award; Film London Training Bursary 2005 British Council Travel Award to USA –
2004 Film London Training Bursary; Arts Council of England R&D Award 2002 Commedia Millennium Award
I am running The Balcony Project Space, a collaborative public art project on a balcony with a physical and digital remit,
https://www.instagram.com/thebalconyprojectceglie/,
@thebalconyprojectceglie
this is a recent interview https://www.les-nouveaux-riches.com/the-balcony-project-space/
2021 Collaborative Toponymy by Essex Cultural Diversity Projects
2020 Casa degli Artisti museum, Milan, live event The Little Book of Answers.
2017 Speak Robert the Artists’ Pavilion by Artquest for the Venice Biennale.
2017 Who Are We, Tate Exchange, London.
2015 The Little Book of Answers, participatory performance for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern.
2014 YES! Onomatopoeia, Dana Centre, Science Museum, London.
2013 Three Moments of a Temporary Loss of Perspective, H. Conte Museo de la Memoria, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2012 Nuovi Paesaggi, Villa Romana, Florence, Italy a commission by Radio Papesse. 2009 Manifesti d’Artista, public art commission, Trieste, Italy.
2018 Middlesex University Library; LADA (Live Art Development Agency) Library, London.
2017 UCL, Special Collection; Wellcome Trust Library.
2015 Victoria & Albert Museum, Word and Image Collection, London.
1996 Herbert Museum & Gallery, Coventry.
2025 https://www.les-nouveaux-riches.com/the-balcony-project-space/
2024 https://www.istitutoeuroarabo.it/DM/gli-ulivi-carson-unode-e-un-balcone/
2020 Journal of Language and Ecology (creative section) http://ecolinguistics-association.org/journal
2020 As four interdisciplinary texts were written in response to The Little Book of Answers, I reference them in an essay published in the book Feminist Art Activisms and Artivisms by Valiz Press. https://www.valiz.nl/en/publications/feminist-art-activisms-and-artivisms.html
2020 Salon for a Speculative Future, MaBiblioteque. Book contributor.
2018 The Artist Borderpanic Compendium. Book contributor.
2017 Open Democracy: https://www.domusweb.it/en/news/2017/05/30/speak_robert.html
2017 Domus https://www.domusweb.it/en/news/2017/05/30/speak_robert.html
2014 Karin Anzivino (University of Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis) wrote her MA thesis on Voicings.
2013 Alexandra Portela reviewed the Argentinian exhibition Three Moments of a Temporary Loss of Perspective.
2025 NawatFes finalist.
2019 Sioux Narrows Creative Residency, Canada. 2016 Apulia Residency, Italy.
2015/16 AA2A Brighton College Residency.
2002 – Oreste Art Residency, Montescaglioso, Italy.
Email: lauramalacart@gmail.com
Address: 39 chimney court, 23 brewhouse lane, london, london, E1W2NU, GB
Local Authority: Darlington
