pub.lic characters
05 September 2025, 6-8PM
FREEHOUSE Studios, Birmingham.
Work by
Alex Billingham, Jaz O'Donohue Emily Scarrott, Ev Thresher, Dinosaur Kilby, Leah Hickey, Sophie Mackfall, Jaz Morrison.
pub.lic characters explores the porosity of objects and the quiet choreography of what happens in the studio — fingertip touches, spatial jolts, dwelling gestures. Objects begin to slip, becoming a cast of characters in a loose pub-like gathering, echoing this space's past as The Royal Oak Inn. They lean, bounce, soak each other up — .lic(ing), licking. Their edges blur; they become public, porous, and orbital objects — constantly forming, foaming, circulating. Leaking into one another, becoming one another, relating, holding, refusing.
In a pub, a cast of characters are at the table. They are talking about things.
(Digbeth First Friday)
(Exhibition Text)
22 — 28 August 2025.
Eagle Works, Wolverhampton.
Work by Jacob Carter.
Exhibition at Eagle Works, as part of his SOUP VII residency with Stryx, Birmingham
Works lean against each other, next to each other — still in the midst of making, editing, scaling, testing.
Unofficial histories,
borrowed architectures and local myths are unfolding here.
This space is taking form.
(Exhibition Text)
July 2025 - Ongoing
Coventry
Work by
Emily Scarrott, The Dudley Dorito, 2025.
Past studio collaborations:
EP1) Jacob Carter; EP2) Emily Scarrott; EP3) Carolyn Morton.
nothing’s really formed in the studio—things are still growing, shifting, pulsating. i’m interested in the spillage of objects + artworks + my studio mess sitting together.
also wanting to open up more conversations around materials / process / gestures / suggestions / indexicals… all the stuff i’m deep in atm, esp painting practices.
if you’re into a ‘studio collab’ + chatting about materials, DM me 🌻⚡️”
unfolding into these
04 July 2025
Eastside Projects, Birmingham
Film works by
Anne-Marie Copestake, A Love 2019 (16mins, 35secs)
Moria Salt, the dirt eaters 2022 (13mins, 02secs)
On a continuous loop, two works draw out the tender moments that pulse beneath the surfaces of the exhibition—the fingertips, the gestures, the soft exchanges between body and space.
In parallel with the exhibition, this screening centres people within architectural and civic spaces—thinking through ideas of Architectural Ethnography and spatial formulations. These works gesture toward a choreography of soft interactions. Thinking about the body as terrain, a body which (even in absence) lingers, responds, absorbs, and filters.
The body as terrain. Space as membrane.
(Programme Text)
(More..)
[…] a hostel for the homeless; a psychiatric ward; a crime scene; a study hall; a place of safety; a boxing ring; a confessional booth; a theatre space; a venture for knitting and book clubs; an information hub for people trying to find a long lost relative or a job. On most days, the library is all of these.
08 March - 05 July 2025
Eastside Projects, Birmingham
and
Coventry Central Library, Coventry
The Library is All of These, includes works by Motunrayo Akinola, Japhet Dinganga, and Jessie Tam at Eastside Projects, with new work by Japhet at Central Library, commissioned from a Library-led brief, reflecting on the past histories of the Library space as The Locarno Ballroom and Tiffany’s nightclub.
Exhibition review by Jaz Morrison (Link..).
(More..)
05 October - 05 November 2024
Centre for Contemporary Art, Derry~Londonderry, NI
(More..)
August 2024 - ongoing
Birmingham / West Midlands
(More..)
July 2023 - ongoing
West Midlands / everywhere
Work by Devika Pararasasinghe, Reclaiming a Notion of You, 2023
(More..)
COMMON-NOTE(S)
July 2022 - July 2023
online
An experimental ground for writing and thinking, COMMON-NOTE(S) is for old writing, disused writing, draft writing, shopping list writing, rejected writing, writing that is writing for writing, writing that was thrown in the bin, and for work that hasn’t been published previously. Funded by PMC from the Graduate Research Art and Labour programme.
(More..)
Lucymaria883@gmail.com
Studio Holder, Holyhead Studios, Coventry.
Her current research explores rehearsal as a curatorial practice, drawing on José Esteban Muñoz’s idea of the “stage as a space of potentiality”—a place where we can rehearse future selves, make mistakes, and practise different ways of being. She is interested in how rehearsal might function as an alternative curatorial method, encompassing drawing, architectural experimentation, and embodied imagination.
Lucy is also slowly thinking about Claude Cahun’s photographic archive of stones, considering these stones as thought-objects: holding spaces, positions, prototypes, platforms—even planets—for building and sustaining other ways of existing in, and formulating space.
MFA Fine Art, Ruskin School of Art, The University of Oxford.
2021 - 2022.
BA Fine Art, Coventry University.
2018 - 2021.
Vice-chair, Board of Trustees, Coventry Artspace, Coventry.
July 2025 - ongoing.
Arts Collection Committee Member, University of Warwick.
May 2025 - ongoing.
Past
Artist-Curator Trainee, Eastside Projects, Birmingham. August 2023 - April 2025.
Research Associate, Centre for Contemporary Art Derry~Londonderry, NI.
January 2023 – 2025.
Library and Information Assistant, Coventry City Council, Coventry.
January – July 2023.
Graduate Researcher, Paul Mellon Centre, London.
July 2022.
Information Assistant, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.
June – September 2021.
Studio Research Assistant, Pangaea Sculptors Centre, Coventry.
January – May 2021.
05 September 2025. pub.lic characters, FREEHOUSE, Birmingham. [curator]
22 — 28 August 2025. Prototype, pROtoTYPE, PRO(to)type, PROTO, prototype, TYPE, Landings, Eagle Works, Wolverhampton. [curator]
July 2025 - ongoing. Studio Collaborations, Coventry [artist]
04 July 2025. unfolding into these, Eastside Projects, Birmingham [curator]
08 March - 05 July, 2025. The Library is All of These, Eastside Projects, Birmingham, and Coventry Central Library [curator]
05 October - 05 November, 2024. REHEARSING BODIES, Centre for Contemporary Art, Derry~Londonderry, Northern Ireland [curator]
August 2024 - ongoing. Art Grunts, Birmingham [Co-curator w/ Beth Exley, and Jen Wilber]
July 2023 - ongoing. flatGROUND, [curator]
2023. prototype projects, Arcadia Gallery, Coventry [artist]
2022 - 2023. COMMON-NOTES, [curator]
2022. Short and Suite, Flatpack Festival, Centrala Space, Birmingham. Curated by IYP. [artist]
2021. A4, Oddball Space, Birmingham [artist]
2021. 365 STATES OF A RESERVOIR, Arcadia Gallery, Coventry. [artist]
2021. Ikon for Artists, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham [artist]
2020. Medium Condition, Graham Sutherland Building, Coventry [curator]
2019. The Bollards Project, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham [artist]
March 2025. [workshop] Curating the Corridor, Coventry University, with Level 5 Fine Art students, Coventry University.
March 2025. [conversation] From The Artists Mouth, Eastside Projects, via instagram.
July 2024. [workshop] Curating the City, with Ikon Youth Programme, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.
March 2024. [workshop] speculative drawing / public space / and an orange, with Ikon Youth Programme, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.
February 2024. DRRAAWINGGGG(drawing). CCA Derry~Londonderry.
February 2024. [speaker] What We Do. Ruskin School of Art, Oxford.
January 2024. Curation Talk (+ Tutorials). Coventry University.
March / October / November 2023. [workshop] Intersectional Reading Group, (+ Cross Group Crits), Coventry University.
March 2023. [writing] What's Already Going On. Katrina Palmer Exhibition Review, Warwick Art Centre.
February 2023. [speaker] MAKING IT HAPPEN: The Art Technician Symposium, Coventry University.
November 2022. [writing] OTHER FORMS TAKE HOLD, Art Review Oxford. Autumn Issue 05.
February 2022. ONLINE Artist Conversation, Oddball Space, Birmingham.
February 2022. [writing] Mountainside Dance, The Press, The Good Press, Glasgow.
September 2021. [workshop writing] Education Explorer guides KS1,2,3, for Mit Jai In, and Bill Woodrow and Richard Deacon Exhibition, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.
July 2021. PING PONG publication and online workshops. Ikon Youth Programme x Black Hole Club collaboration, launch event 22 July 2021.
July 2021. [writing] 'Opening Speech' Ikon Youth Programme Publication.
November 2020. [writing] Unknowable Occurrences : Presence published online by Must Use Critical Knowledge (MUCK).
November 2020. Krištof Kintera Exhibition Learning Tour, Ikon Gallery.
February 2020. [convened] Emerge Symposium, Coventry University.
Grant recipient, Warwickshire Reformatory Schools Fund.
June 2025.
Research Barrier Fund recipient, British Artist Network.
September 2024.
Jerwood Developing Artists Fund.
January 2023 - 2025
Studio work, 2025.
Green cutting matt, tracing paper, marker.
Studio work, 2025
MDF wood, notebook paper, pencil, metel screws.
Found paper, pencil, chalk, watercolour.
Studio work, 2025
Notebook paper, pen, planet rubbers.
Drawing series, 2024
found paper, sticky notes, pencil.
Prototype Projects, Arcadia Gallery, Coventry, 2023
(Installation view)
Studio work, 2021-22.
Various materials / compositions.