Charlotte Cullen

Returning to Derby to undertake the Artcore No Matter How Strong Residency I was interested in how I could re-root myself in the landscape of Derby. Having moved from Derbyshire ten years prior the city centre felt full of ghosts; half-forgotten memories and uncanny recollections of streets and other open spaces. As an entry way I began developing a fieldwork method of research. Following routes and pathways through the city I found respite by the river edge and began to think about the intergenerational relationship of early settlers also coming to the river, interacting with the same site and mud, the same material heritage. I went to Derby Museum and learnt through material fragments about early settlers and the development of Derby as a city, how layers of mud have held onto memories. These excavations have enabled us to trace the land through forgotten tools and drawings left in dwellings. As someone who works with clay and pottery, remnants of early pottery vessels connected my process to early ancestors, working through the ground their skills and techniques have been passed down into the way my fingers shape clay today. Metal working further rooted my material practice, connecting my sculptural material to land extraction and alchemy, and closer still to my grandads work at Stanton Iron Works in the 1970’s and 80’s after moving to England. A fragment of a carved monument encouraged me to consider the hands which had so carefully chosen this stone, taken it from the earth and skilfully