If awarded the Dover Prize, I would use the bursary to expand my sculptural and research-led practice through the creation of a new body of work that explores local ecologies, hybrid identities, and the entanglement of nature and technology. This funding would support both the development and production of work grounded in Darlington’s landscape and its layered histories—with a focus on ecology. These works would then be exhibited at Bomb Factory in Holborn where I have a studio, I would love to collaborate with a Darlington gallery also to host the exhibition there also.
The bursary would enable me to spend extended time in Darlington, immersing myself in the area through site visits, environmental observation, and archival research. I am particularly interested in exploring Darlington’s ecological heritage—how its local flora, fauna, and landscapes have evolved, adapted, and coexisted over time—and how these natural systems might be reimagined through speculative sculptural forms.
The funding would be used to support materials including found and organic matter, clay, painting materials and digital fabrication technologies such as 3D modelling and 3D printing (to then be cast – which is a common thread in my work). I would also allocate part of the bursary to supporting a local foundry, where I could have one or more of the final works cast in aluminium / relevant material. The budget would also cover documentation of this new body of work with hiring a videographer to document the project (see the Vimeo link of a previous project where I hired a director) which would support the visibility of the work beyond the exhibiting the work and enabling future opportunities and collaboration.
My practice offers an opportunity to engage audiences in Darlington with urgent questions around identity, nature, and technology, through an accessible lens. Darlington’s relationship with the natural and industrial landscape offer a great grounding for this exploration. I would love to propose a workshop for children that draws directly from Darlington’s local flora and fauna, where participants collect natural materials—leaves, twigs, stones—to create hybrid creature sculptures. These playful, imaginative forms will reflect the ways animals (and humans) adapt and evolve in response to their environments. By combining found materials with simple sculptural techniques, children will explore identity, transformation, and their connection to place.
I am a London-based artist working across sculpture, drawing, and painting. I received my MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art in July 2023 and currently work from a shared studio at the Bomb Factory Art Foundation, where I continue to develop my practice. Recent highlights of exhibitions include group shows at APT Gallery (March 2025), Alice Black (April 2024), Bomb Factory (December 2023), Studio West (November 2023), Annely Juda (July 2023). My practice seeks to explore and understand the statement “I am animal” in all its dimensions. I’m interested in how humans, as embodied beings, are deeply entangled with the physical world—how our consciousness, emotions, and identities are inseparable from nature, the earth, and the environments we inhabit. I explore this interconnectedness through a focus on hybridity, transformation, and resistance to fixed biological and societal structures. Drawing on the work of Donna Haraway, particularly her concept of sympoiesis—or “making with”—I reject the idea of the isolated individual in favour of collective creation. I’m drawn to the image of a spider weaving its web: a co-creation between organism, material, and environment. My work reflects this entangled process, emphasizing collaboration, interaction, and interdependence. I’m also influenced by how animals adapt or distort themselves to survive, mirroring how people alter or obscure their identities to exist within systems that demand categorisation. I study body and animal bones, flora, and fauna, creating fluid, abstract forms in both 2D and 3D that challenge rigid concepts of identity and being. Cyborg feminism further informs my practice. Inspired by Haraway’s challenge to the boundaries between human, animal, and machine, I use technologies such as 3D printing and robotic arms to blur the lines between organic and artificial. My work exists at the intersection of biology, technology, and society, aiming to reflect the complexities and fluidity of contemporary identity.
MA Degree – Sculpture at the Royal College of Art 2021 – 2023
BA Degree – Visual Communications at Nottingham Trent University 2011-2014
I am part of Bomb Factory, an artist led studio. Within that I run a sculpture studio which has 7 artists in.
I have had private commissions only.
Upon graduating from the RCA an RCA led residency in Prussia Cove for 2 weeks.
Email: rachelbungey@gmail.com
Address: 70-72 chatsworth road, london, e50LS, GB
