Sam’s Jerwood Bursary will support some time undertaking action research at the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. The collection houses work by artists who were self-taught and outside the art world, many of whom were institutionalised and had learning difficulties or were autistic. They will be looking specifically at works that evidence repetitive mark-making and aim to gather evidence relating to movement, gesture and mark-making that tells a story of embodied communication. Sam is particularly interested in alternative communication that is non verbal and body based.
As an outcome of the research, Sam wants to create a catalogue of alternative notation to describe the phenomena. It will be a record of types of movement and mark-making, and is an extension of their previous work: choreographic objects that developed a body of work around alternative forms of notation. As a neurodivergent artist with sensory processing differences, the objects allow Sam to work in non-verbal ways.
