WITTA

WITTA (Writing In / To / Through Art)

We’ve been taking a breath here at WITTA HQ after the success of our recent exhibition, symposium and salon events – WAW...
27/07/2026

We’ve been taking a breath here at WITTA HQ after the success of our recent exhibition, symposium and salon events – WAWAW | Writing Art Writing Art Writing: When Language Becomes Material – held in June at Spike Island, Bristol.

In the meantime, we have commissioned a new text by artist and writer, Lily Frances, to produce a creative response to our symposium and salon. Lily is an artist and poet whose practice explores intimacy and distance, among other things. She works across video, sound, and oil painting. Lily is in the second year of her practice-based PhD at the University of Bristol, researching Belgian director and artist Chantal Akerman. Her thesis explores sound and feminine subjectivity in Akerman’s films, through a focus on background noise and bodily memory.

“The standard order of things,” Lily writes, “is disrupted by this attention to the body: the symposium reorients itself towards the more immediate, embodied conditions of its own unfolding”

Sign up to WITTAmail read Lily’s response in full. Link in bio.

When Language Becomes Material: Exhibition open! We will be open: Fri 26 – Sun 28 June | 11–5pm And Mon 29 June - Thur ...
27/06/2026

When Language Becomes Material: Exhibition open!

We will be open:

Fri 26 – Sun 28 June | 11–5pm
And Mon 29 June - Thur 2 July

We are upstairs at Spike Island - ask for access at reception.

When Language Becomes Material is an exhibition devised by Lizzie Lloyd and Kit Poulson which explores the material possibilities, traces and manifestations of language in art. The exhibition, in which words materialise and dematerialize, includes work by Huma Mulji and Emmanuelle Waeckerlé, Young In Hong and Owen Lloyd, Jo Lathwood and Marianne Mulvey, Mary Hurrell, and Amak Mahmoodian.

Amak Mahmoodian امک محمودیان Young In Hong Emmanuelle Waeckerle Jo Lathwood .curating Marianne Mulvey Spike Island

Image: Amak Mahmoodian, Zanjir, 2007-2019. Courtesy of the artist.

Introducing Jo Lathwood whose work will feature in the upcoming WITTA exhibition at Spike Island The Corridor, ‘When Lan...
22/06/2026

Introducing Jo Lathwood whose work will feature in the upcoming WITTA exhibition at Spike Island The Corridor, ‘When Language Becomes Material’. The exhibition will feature work by several artists who explore the material possibilities, traces and manifestations of language in art. The exhibition coincides with WITTA’s symposium and performance salon event on Saturday 27 June 2026, WAWAW | Writing Art Writing Art Writing: When Language Becomes Material. More details in bio!

Jo Lathwood is a q***r artist whose practice spans drawing, sculpture, moving image, and large-scale installation works for both galleries and the public realm. She has exhibited widely across the UK and internationally, undertaking residencies and participating in biennials in the USA, Canada, France, Belgium, Lithuania, and Austria.

Lathwood studied Fine Art Sculpture at the University of Brighton, graduating with First-Class Honours in 2006. She co-directed the travelling bronze foundry Ore and Ingot from 2012 to 2018 and served on the EARTHart Council at the University of Bristol from 2017 to 2024.

She maintains a studio at Spike Island in Bristol and is Chair of the Board of Trustees at BRICKS. She is currently the Freelands Fellow at Bath Spa University (2026–2027).

Jo Lathwood Spike Island

Images:

1. Jo Lathwood. Photo: Paul Blakemore.

2. Jo Lathwood and Marianne Mulvey, Work in Progress.

Introducing Lydia Davies who will be performing at our evening salon (5:30–9pm) as part of WITTA’s day-long event WAWAW ...
15/06/2026

Introducing Lydia Davies who will be performing at our evening salon (5:30–9pm) as part of WITTA’s day-long event WAWAW | Writing Art Writing Art Writing: When Language Becomes Material at Spike Island, Bristol on Saturday 27 June 2026. The salon follows an afternoon symposium with keynote presentations by artist-writers Katrina Palmer and Roy Claire Potter and coincides with the WITTA exhibition, ‘When Language Becomes Material’, the major artist’s book fair, BABE (Bristol Artist Book Event), and Spike Island’s current exhibition, ‘Several Chickens Later’ by Nancy Lupo. More details in bio!

Lydia Davies is an artist and writer based in London, working across moving image, performance, painting and bookmaking. Lydia is preoccupied with interpersonal dynamics, bodily gestures, and the shifting registers of voice and narration. Her work draws attention to the ways in which selves are both sustained and undone through their relations.

She has recently developed live performances for Fruitmarket (Edinburgh) and David Dale Gallery (Glasgow), and will present a new live-to-air performance with Radiophrenia in September 2026.

www.lydiadavies.co.uk

Lydia Davies

Spike Island

Image: Lydia Davies, ‘The glass’, performance at Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, 2025. Photo: Wei Zhou.

Introducing Emmanuelle Waeckerlé whose work will feature in the upcoming WITTA exhibition at Spike Island, ‘When Languag...
13/06/2026

Introducing Emmanuelle Waeckerlé whose work will feature in the upcoming WITTA exhibition at Spike Island, ‘When Language Becomes Material’. The exhibition will feature work by several artists who explore the material possibilities, traces and manifestations of language in art. The exhibition coincides with WITTA’s symposium and performance salon event on Saturday 27 June 2026, WAWAW | Writing Art Writing Art Writing: When Language Becomes Material. More details in bio!

Emmanuelle Waeckerlé is a London based academic, artist, composer, experimental vocalist, and improviser interested in the materiality and musicality of language. She is Reader in Fine Art and Relational Practices and director of bookRoom at UCA Farnham.

Her practice and research explore the materiality and musicality of language and evolve across multiple interconnected work zones – conceptual writing, performance, new musical composition, artist-publishing, curating: manifesting as literary, poetic, and sonic compositions, occasions for their activation (installation, performance, workshop) and resulting image, drawing, text, or sound works.

Her music and scores are distributed by Wandelweiser editions. Her book works are held in collections including V&A, The Tate, the Poetry Library at Southbank Centre, The Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris, Centre Des Livres d’Artistes, Saint-Yrieix-La-Perche.

www.ewaeckerle.com , UCA profile https://www.uca.ac.uk/staff-profiles/emmanuelle-waeckerle/ , https://www.wandelweiser.de/emmanuelle-waeckerle.html

Emmanuelle Waeckerle Spike Island

Images

1. Emmanuelle Waeckerlé

2. Emmanuelle Waeckerlé, ‘Echo’ (2026), Ink drawing on A4 paper.

Introducing Huma Mujli whose work will feature in the upcoming WITTA exhibition at Spike Island, ‘When Language Becomes ...
13/06/2026

Introducing Huma Mujli whose work will feature in the upcoming WITTA exhibition at Spike Island, ‘When Language Becomes Material’. The exhibition will feature work by several artists who explore the material possibilities, traces and manifestations of language in art. The exhibition coincides with WITTA’s symposium and performance salon event on Saturday 27 June 2026, WAWAW | Writing Art Writing Art Writing: When Language Becomes Material. More details in bio!

Investigating borders, migrant memory and collective remembering, material culture, globalization, displacement and fragmented histories, within the realm of sculptural installation, Huma Mulji draws on place, as both site and subject. She considers artworks as timekeepers, marking emotional histories: of sorrow, hope, solidarities and humour. The works stand as inconvenient witnesses, intentionally uncertain, across the plural worlds that she inhabits. In a recent work Bombay Duck, she critically explores material and form, using breath to blow glass objects that scorch the surfaces that host them. Paradoxically remaining fragile and being shaped by the scaffold of mangrove wood, they serve as metaphors for the strength and vulnerability of exiled bodies.

She is a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, at the University of the West of England, Bristol.

Spike Island

Images

1. Huma Mujli. Photo by Diana Pfammatter.

2. Huma Mujli, ‘MINOR DETAIL’ (2024), Digital Embroidery on Calico, 21 cm x 29 cm.

Introducing Mary Hurrell whose work will feature in the upcoming WITTA exhibition at Spike Island, ‘When Language Become...
12/06/2026

Introducing Mary Hurrell whose work will feature in the upcoming WITTA exhibition at Spike Island, ‘When Language Becomes Material’. The exhibition will feature work by several artists who explore the material possibilities, traces and manifestations of language in art. The exhibition coincides with WITTA’s symposium and performance salon event on Saturday 27 June 2026, WAWAW | Writing Art Writing Art Writing: When Language Becomes Material. More details in bio!

Mary Hurrell (South Africa/UK) is an artist based in Bristol working fluidly between experimental music and performance. Her practice explores forms of language, movement and voice in relation to physical and psychological experience. Mary released her debut album FORMATIONS in 2024 and has performed live nationally and internationally at En Masse Festival, Bristol Beacon, Strange Brew (Bristol), Cafe OTO, Corsica Studios, IKLECTIK (London), The Old Hairdressers (Glasgow) and Jupiter Rising Festival (Edinburgh). She has presented performances and projects with motor dance journal, Nicoletti Contemporary, Flat Time House, The Roberts Institute of Art, South London Gallery (London) and fluent (Spain). Recent artist residencies include PRAXIS (Spain); BrittenPears Arts (UK); Gilfélagið (Iceland) and Yamakiwa Gallery, (Japan). She is currently a Studio Artist at Spike Island, Bristol.

Spike Island

Images

1. Mary Hurrell. Photo by An Nguyen (2025)

2. Mary Hurrell, ‘FLOWER OF THE SKIN’ (Text), (2025).

Are you an art writer or artist writer? We want to hear from you. There’s still time to complete the WITTA survey so gra...
25/11/2025

Are you an art writer or artist writer? We want to hear from you.

There’s still time to complete the WITTA survey so grab yourselves a cuppa and tell us more about what you do, why you do it, how you do it and what you need to do more of it.

Please share this post far and wide with your friends, colleagues and networks.

Link in bio.

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Bristol

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