Kei Langley and Samuel Bestwick
For our first ever four month residency we welcomed artists Kei Langley and Samuel Bestwick into the Back Lane West project space!
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They shared the space to develop their independent projects, though they had previously worked together on Keskorra, a project funded by Kei’s Curator Residency with CAMP membership in 2021. ⠀
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During her time at Back Lane West, Kei looked into the intermittent bouts of allowed absurdity and mania through local traditions and rituals that disrupt the inactivity and serenity of rural areas. Specifically by means of her own childhood memories of growing up in St Ives and via the investigation of invisible and mysterious local elements.⠀
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Sam’s intention was to use the space to support his current practice as well as developing two new projects; both of which explored Cornish culture and its history, focusing specifically on the county’s changing relationship to the wider world. Through the residency he aimed to re-establish himself within the roots of his practice whilst also experimenting with and developing his use of moving image.⠀
Biography
Kei is a transdisciplinary artist living and working in Cornwall. Exploring the resonant relationship that she has to the surrounding world, specifically how we navigate this connection between our internal self to our external location, especially through our complex environment layered with nature and technology and the organic and man-made. Through this process she begins to understand the phenomenological contract we have with the space we inhabit.
Sam describes himself as a video artist / filmmaker person, though his work utilises multiple mediums: printmaking, installation, photography etc. – he’s often drawn to the presentation of moving images. Sam utilises mythologies and religious texts in his work, relating the narratives contained within them to a present day context. Recently his work has shifted more towards the act of looking and, by extension, philosophies surrounding the camera itself.