Hi, I’m Leah Clements, an artist from and based in East London. 

I’m really interested in moments of transcendence – these might be near death or out of body experiences, or profound shifts in psychology or physicality. Sometimes this is very scientific, sometimes it veers towards the paranormal. I want to get to these moments where you have one foot in this world and the other in another.

A lot of this comes from being chronically ill myself, but this point of departure usually expands outwards into other people’s experiences, with an intent to re-collectivise.

During the residency I’m planning to work on a new moving image scene where icons from ancient, medieval, and contemporary sites will come together to forge a new symbol. This is growing out of my research into apopheny vs epiphany (more on that later!)  and thinking about how we look for meaning when it feels lacking, and whether we can know if we’re looking for it in the right or wrong places. It will give me a chance to try (and play about with) a new technique of animation in film editing. 

Comment any thoughts you have, or ask me questions – I look forward to sharing some of my research into this and talking with you about it…