Helen Marton
Mixed Media Artist

Throughout history and from one culture to another, the use and ownership of specific materials made into objects has indicated power, status, wealth, gender and is the foundation of economy. Each material resonates, speaks, and holds meaning and significance. My practice based research highlights material resonance in the production of art and craft, referring to site, heritage and culture. I was one of a select group of artists who worked on an 18-month Maker Engagement Project. During this time I visited project partners in Hungary, explored collections at the National Museet in Denmark, and accompanied archaeologists on visits to Bronze Age collections and archaeological digs. www.cinba.net. I contributed to knowledge exchange between archaeologists and contemporary craftspeople, using practice-based research to provide insights into the tools, processes and the inherent creativity in Bronze Age ceramics. My research includes an investigation into the use of Gabbroic clay (a type of clay found on the Lizard peninsula) in contemporary ceramic work, including observation of and practical engagement with the material, location and environment. Forging lasting links with researchers and craftspeople across Europe, I continue to collaborate and develop research activity in this field. My interdisciplinary engagement with the humanities fuels continued pedagogic research, which examines resonance as an aspect invested in every material/artefact. It has become clear that in my own teaching of process and the mapping of a creative cycle, this notion can underline resonance as a pedagogic threshold concept, investigating the idea that learning and creativity go beyond any reductive notion of a qualification. Working towards a practice based interdisciplinary PhD led to the exploration of communication of archaeology through digital craft reinterpretations. Examining archaeological material and mapping of local legacy at the site known as Tremough in Penryn, Cornwall, specifically looking at how the qualities in archaeological material might be represented and reinterpreted over time and according to the culture inhabiting the space.