residuals – Creative & dance journal

Poster! ‘Integrate Your Practice’ for ECSA 2026 conference, Oulu, Finland

This poster for the European Citizen Science Association conference in Oulu, Finland (3-6 March) shows how the co-created art practice (‘Residuals’ series) was integrated with the science practice of co-created crop trials – both of which used charcoal/biochar. The A1 poster included an ontology of human and more-than-human-expression. See the poster (PDF 3 MBytes).

Situating an Integrated Research Practice: charcoal and expression as a mediating material and practice

I came across the idea of more-than-human-expression. To aid my understanding, I draw this diagram which seeks to reconcile the Residuals art series (drawing with charcoal) and crop trials of potato plants and charcoal (wood biochar) which I produced. The unifying concept of expression in human and non-human actors (potato plants) through charcoal, shows the material, practice and conceptual integration in an ontology.

Crop trials with biochar and the residuals art series

The residuals series of art works/performances used biochar granules that were re-purposed as artists charcoal for drawing. The series ran parallel to crop trials of potatoes with biochar – which acts as a plant fertiliser. The abstract for a scientific paper about these trials in 2024 is presented here which was developed with my collaborator Karl Wallendszus in 2025.

Suspending Residuals #7

Residuals #7 was the longest of the Residuals series: an 8 metre long charcoal drawing which was intended to be suspended upside down so that you could move underneath it and experience the sensation of ‘flying over its surface’. In spring and summer 2025, Theo Hopkins – who is a designer and wood craftsman, worked with me in designing a wooden hanging frame to suspend the Residuals #7 drawing.

Residuals #10 Light

In January 2025 – a year after starting the Residuals series, I used performance and long exposure photography to record light – its reflection from the surfaces of moving bodies, as a residual – including darkness and shadow too! Here are presented these ‘light graphs’ from the session at Goldsmiths CI at Goldsmiths, University of London on Saturday 18 January.

Residuals #9 Circle in the Hayslip

On 24 September 2024, I returned to Schumacher College, Dartington to harvest the potatoes from the crop trial which I started there in summer 2024. It was part of my Integrated Research Practice. After the performance, a circle of charcoal remained in the soil: an archaeological art work and residuals in my body as memory.

Residuals #8 Apple picking

The apple harvest of 2024 was one of the most prodigious I’ve known. Dancer Jo Dyer and I performed a dance to celebrate the apple harvest on 12 September 2024 . We picked apples using them as a movement and drawing construct. Not unlike the dancing/dance drawing with potatoes in Residuals #4, and Residuals #7 but now apples. (Pomme rather than pomme de terre!)

Residuals #7 Draw Potato Harvest

In 2024, I conducted a crop trial of potatoes and bio-char (charcoal) in my allotment garden in Oxford, UK. In September, it was time to harvest the potatoes and entact a performance: drawing the produce from the soil through dance and movement; and creating a drawing – a potato drawing. The performance was with the Unknown Performer – a person who prefers not to be named, from 19 August 2024 and other days in August/September 2024.

Residuals #6 Shadow Mirror

The Residual series #1 – #5, had all used charcoal on paper for mark-making, or as we might otherwise say, charcoal was used for marking the performance!

In Residuals #6 then shadow was the mark-making element. It was performed at OVADA, Osney Mead, Oxford on Tuesday 13 August 2024. The idea of a mirror dance is partly based on the notion that individuals in social relations naturally mirror each other resulting in symmetric patterns. It’s also such a simple dance that it hardly seems like a dance at all – which it is!

Residuals #5 Blocking & Exclusion

Like all of the residuals performances, Residuals #5 was co-created – but this time with an artist who prefers not to be named, and who I’ll address in this article as the Unknown Artist. The idea of blocking movement – which in the visual arts would be ‘masking’ – also has a social narrative too. This performance was at OVADA, Osney Mead, Oxford on Tuesday 6 August 2024.