Lucy Willow

Senior Lecturer subject specialist in sculpture

I joined Falmouth University in 2012 as full time lecturer in Fine Art with subject specialism in Sculpture. I coordinate and run the Fine Art professional practice program in partnership with local art organisations Newlyn Art Gallery, Tate St.Ives, Field Notes, Back Lane West, CAST. In 2014 set up Café Morte a research group with Mercedes Kemp, students, academics and artists. As a group we have met regularly, each member leading a critical debate or discussion starting with an object, artwork, film or text to generate a series of questions and ideas relating to death. Curated exhibitions include Lost For Words (January 2016) and The Tears Of Things (February 2017) Our research is documented on a blog where we share practice and responses to death in visual and literary culture. For the past five years (2012-17) I have been working with students entering a competition run by BAMS (British Art Medals Society). 15 students from fine art take part working on a small scale sculptural bronze casting project competing against UK and European art schools and universities. Each year Falmouth University continues to celebrate prizewinners and a number of students have their work published in a catalogue and exhibited in an exhibition at British Museum. Additional to my full time teaching/research position, I am also a link tutor to China for students wishing to study in the UK. The first visit in November 2013 enabled me to identify the learning needs of the students and devise a series of workshops to address these needs.

Telephone 01326 213844

Email lucy.willow@falmouth.ac.uk

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Qualifications

Year	Qualification	Awarding body
2003	BA Fine Art	Falmouth College of Art
2012	PGCHE	Falmouth University

Research Interests

Research interests and expertise

Acknowledging the way in which visual culture represents death and dying, mourning and grieving through art, imagery and poetry is central to my research. Death and dying are integral to art and literature. Death generates a creative response in artists, writers and the individual through memorializing and making visible the space it occupies. Through the establishment of a research group Café Morte (2014) we facilitate bringing communities of creative practitioners, (artists, writers, performers, curators) together to examine how in the space after death, creativity takes place. Current research explores the idea of a ‘dead’ landscape as a psychic space where communication can take place between the dead and the living. Through working with dust, human ashes and memorial debris I am interested in creating a material presence of the dead. Creating mourning codes and rituals I am interested in how we incorporated the dead into life through contemporary art practice as a way of commemorating and remembering. Through objects we are able to process complex feelings following as the object/artwork mediate between the dead and the living binding the dead to the living. As the bereavement narrative details are missing from my work it is based on the feeling and sensations of loss and the instability and uncertainty that bereavement brings. I am interested in the relationship between private and public memorial space and how social interaction with the work can generate a dynamic encounter with bereavement, depression and melancholia that surround it. Published research: The last photograph: A microscopic view of transience, mourning and loss Malady and Mortality: Illness, Disease and Death in Literary and Visual CultureISBN(13): 978-1-4438-9010-6

Research Topics

death
liminal space
loss
melancholia
transience

Research Outputs

Publications and research outputs

Book Section

Willow, Lucy (2016) THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH: A MICROSCOPIC VIEW OF TRANSIENCE, MOURNING AND LOSS. In: Malady and Mortality Illness, Disease and Death in Literary and Visual Culture. Cambride Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, pp. 283-289. ISBN 1-4438-9010-3

Conference or Workshop Item

Willow, Lucy (2018) At Sea Again: A Drop in the Ocean. In: Remember Me The Changing Face of Memorialisation, 4-7 April 2018, Hull, UK. (Unpublished)

Willow, Lucy and Kemp, Mercedes

(2016) CAFE MORTE: LOST FOR WORDS. In: MOTH; TALKS IN THE FACE OF DEATH, January 08 2016, Falmouth University. (Unpublished)

Willow, Lucy (2014) Under The Influence: The Silent Creek at Low Tide. In: Under The Influence, 07-07 Mar 2014, CAST Helston, Cornwall.. (Unpublished)