Artists

Stuart Bowditch and Alan Hockett are artists born and bred in Essex.

Stuart Bowditch

Stuart is a sound recordist, artist and musician interested in exploreing locations near or far. He is particularly interested in communities, the activities they undertake, objects and sounds to be found in those locations.

Previous projects he has been involved with are: Team Hadleigh, an Essex Legacy 2012 commission (Essex County Council) to record the history of the Essex town of Hadleigh as spoken by the local residents; Vibe Cube (ECC, 2009 with Damien Robinson) an exploration of the 'spirit of place' through the use of sound from three Essex towns, Harlow, Colchester and Basildon; Bastion (Suffolk Coastal District Council, 2011) an artist residency at Landguard Fort which culminated in a tactile sound installation using only sounds recorded at the Fort and the surrounding peninsular.

Alan Hockett

Alan is at HOFS fascinatated with the Essex coastline, especially the forgotten or derelict structures that inhabit the landscape. He is not a photographer, his background is in fine art where there is a tradition of painting the coast. Alan re-interprets the landscape using a baked bean can pin hole camera to distort the image which creates tension within the image whilst keeping the essence of the original subject. His pictures effortlessly combines a twisted vision of the world, presented in a style reminiscent of the early days of photography.

Recently Alan has been involved in transforming a number of architectural spaces into a camera obscura, these have included a medieval barn, an eighteenth century church porch and a beach hut on Southend seafront. Each space was open to the public and dramatically changed their experience of both the interior space and exterior view.



