Here are some of my current projects and freelance roles
Arts & Wellbeing
I was employed by the Foundling Museum as the Arts & Wellbeing Manager from 2023-2024. In this role I led on the Museum's work with Social Prescribing, Hospital Projects and Wellbeing Projects.I formerly worked as as the Arts & Wellbeing Connector at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, where I supported the production of a creative health programme at the new Tessa Jowell Health Centre in East Dulwich, London Borough of Southwark.
I am currently working as a freelance mentor and supporting organisations to develop creative health programming. I also assist artists with grant writing (Arts Council England DYCP grants, other funding bids and exhibition proposals).
Teaching
I have been appointed by the University of Glasgow School of Modern Languages & Cultures as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Comparative Literature department to teach literary criticism and theory.I recently served as a GTA on the MSc End of Life Studies course Cultural Representations of Death and Dying. This course examines how death and dying have been represented in popular culture, visual arts and literature. Students are introduced to methods of visual and literary analysis and learn to identify and critique specific cultural tropes used to represent the end of life. I facilitated weekly seminars and assisted with marking and course communications.
Research
DEATHWRITES This Royal Society of Edinburgh-funded Network ran from 2022-2024 and supported 30 Scotland-based writers from across disciplines and genres to write and publish powerful, accessible work. I participated in the project as a Research Assistant and developed a Network website to serve as an archive and resource. I designed and produced a newspaper and assisted with the production of a public symposium in Glasgow in 2024.I am currently a Research Fellow at the University of Texas, Austin. I’m researching the choreographic and literary work of artist Deborah Hay, whose papers are held in the Harry Ransom Center archives.
Here is some of my writing
Defence Mechanisms - Exhibition
In this solo exhibition of photographs and mixed media works on paper, Carrie Foulkes explores notions of defence, taking inspiration from three sites: the sea, the desert and the garden. The show brings together new and older pieces that represent the artist’s abiding interest in the meeting places of bodies, architecture and the living world.
Reflecting on the myriad ways in which plants protect themselves, Defence Mechanisms presents portraits of Mexican cactus, Suffolk foxglove and Spanish desert thistle. These are viewed in dialogue with a picture of a coastal nuclear power station’s cooling apparatus. Beach pebbles are gathered in the arms of a figure that merges with the shoreline. Anonymous hotel room interiors become symbols of contemplation and refuge.
Working with analogue photography, drawing, painting and collage, the artist considers the interconnectivity of internal and external structures, viewing the image as a conduit between the material and intangible, conscious and unconscious spheres. Her work with paper echoes the barbs and bright toxicity of flora.
Autobiographical strands are woven throughout the exhibition, positing the making of images as a strategy of self-defence and method of survival.
On the autumn equinox, 23rd September, the artist hosted a Live Night with literary contributions from invited guests, the creative community being another vital source of sanctuary and support. The event featured poetry and readings by JD Howse, Zelda Solomon, Mischa Foster Poole, Nadira Clare Wallace, Jennifer Lucy Allan and a performance by Carrie Foulkes with improvised musical accompaniment by Lucy Tasker. The performance, Sunflower Hospice, was conceived as a funeral celebration for the summertime. The audience participated in a procession and ritual burial of four sunflowers tended by the artist from seedlings to old age over the previous months.
Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O my soul, I loved you then!
Allen Ginsberg, Sunflower Sutra
A Celebration of Georgian Poetry and Music
On 5th May 2023 I hosted a celebration of Georgian poetry and music at St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace in Bishopsgate. The evening featured a performance of polyphonic singing by London’s Georgian choir Maspindzeli, the launch of a new translation of poems by Tbilisi poet Lia Sturua and a discussion with the translators Natalia Bukia-Peters and Victoria Field.
Produced with support from Arts Council England, the Writers’ House of Georgia and the Embassy of Georgia to the UK.
Image: From the project " I Am Georgia - მე ვარ საქართველო" by Dina Oganova www.Dikarka.Ge
Uncivilised Paradigms
In 2022 I was one of fifty participants from thirty-nine different countries that were selected to take part in DE.a.RE. Uncivilised Paradigms, a free online course that embarked from socially engaged practices, New Genre Public Art, critical pedagogy and activism, in dialogue with contemporary artistic practices.
Promoted and developed by the international association BJCEM-Biennale des jeunes créateurs de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée and co-funded by the European Union.
I was one of five artists chosen by the committee to receive an award and an invitation to present my work at the final conference Study Day. The conference took place in November 2022 at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy.
I shared a presentation called
Bees - Bodies - Buildings
as part of the following panel:
Building Critique, Making Space for Change, Repairing the World: Agency and Care in Architecture
curated by Svetlana Racanović
With the participation of Sonja Dragović, Marie Hervé, and one fellow of Uncivilised Paradigms: Carrie Foulkes
My talk explored the intersections of human and environmental health and the politics and aesthetics of public space.
Tending
Site-specific performance, Joya: arte + ecología, Spain, 2022
During a residency at Joya, a centre for art and ecology in Andalucía, I developed a performance in response to the local terrain. I presented the piece in the late afternoon, in the golden light preceding dusk. The sole instructions to the audience were to keep the silence and to follow me at a distance. When I started walking, this marked the beginning of the performance.
We walked through an olive grove and into a pale field where there were many holes dug in the ground. I’d been struck by these hollows during my daily walks. They had been dug in anticipation of a mass tree planting endeavour due to take place later in the autumn. Little piles of dusty earth sat beside each hole. They were reminiscent of graves. My performance responded to the dual nature of these cavities as sites of potential growth and of death and loss. They were to be understood as both wombs and tombs.
Tending was informed by the saying: a wise person knows they’ll never sit in the shade of the tree they plant. I intended to create an image of a gardener tending the soil in which one day they will be buried. The performance evoked the notion of intertwined forces of living / dying and symbolised a commitment to action in the face of climate crisis, however absurd or futile.
Generous emptiness: sculptural and architectural encounters
Artist talk, The Posthumanities Hub & The Eco- and Bioart Lab Hybrid Seminar, Linköping University, Sweden, 2022
This talk pondered different kinds of ‘emptiness’ and their potentialities. As a way into thinking about some relevant themes, I introduced the Sun Hive, exploring the hive’s material and conceptual aspects and how it symbolises a certain kind of relationship between humans and honeybees. Unlike many other forms of bee box that already have frames installed inside them, the Sun Hive provides a colony with a primarily ’empty’ space in which to build their comb, contained by a form that reflects and honours the bees’ natural preferences. The hive is imbued with an ethos of generosity, love and respect rather than of control.
Thinking about the Sun Hive enabled a consideration of some of the meaningful and generative ways in which an artistic practice can meet with a scientific method of observation in an ecological context. We also looked at spatial sculptural/installation practices as transformative sites in terms of human health and wellbeing. I narrated embodied encounters with artworks and the ways in which these resonated and provided support during a time of bereavement. The talk closed with a reflection on some of the ways in which built environments can be conducive to contemplative states, drawing on examples of remarkable public spaces such as the Kamppi Chapel – “the chapel of silence” – in Helsinki, and contrasting this with the prevalent strategy of ‘hostile architecture’ in urban design.
Carrie Foulkes is an artist, writer and complementary therapist with an interest in hybrid literary forms and text/image dialogues
She works in the medical humanities, exploring intersections of arts, culture, politics, environment and health
Her practice encompasses creative non-fiction, poetry, visual arts, performance, bodywork and philosophy
Residencies and Fellowships
Pilotenküche, Leipzig, Germany, 2024 (upcoming)
Harry Ransom Center Research Fellowship in the Humanities, Supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Research Fellowship Endowment, University of Texas, Austin, 2024
Live Art Desk Scheme, LADA, London, 2023
Joya: arte + ecología, Spain, 2022
Centre for Medical Humanities and Bioethics, Linköping, Sweden, 2022
Writers’ House, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2022
Arteles Creative Centre Alumni Assistant, Finland, 2018-2019
ArtHouse Jersey, collaborative performance residency with Karen Le Roy Harris, Jersey, 2018
Artist in residence at St Katharine’s Precinct, London, 2015-2018
Bee Time ecological residency for artists, Vejer de la Frontera, Spain, 2017
Arteles Creative Centre Residency, Finland, 2017
Cove Park, Scotland, 2014
Poetry residential with Tom Leonard and Liz Lochhead, Moniack Mhor, Scotland, 2012
Grants and Awards
University of Glasgow, College of Arts Research Support Award, 2024
Dissertation Fellowship, Harry Ransom Center, 2024
The Politics of Art & Social Change: Rights in Focus Conference Bursary, 2023
BJCEM Uncivilised Paradigms conference participation award, 2022
Arts Council England, Project Grant, 2022
University of Glasgow, College of Arts Research Support Award, 2022
a-n Artist Bursary, R&D supporting new work in sculpture, 2022
Turing Scheme, doctoral mobility award, 2022
a-n Artist Biennial Bursary, Manifesta, Palermo, Italy, 2018
Arts Council England, Grants for the Arts, 2017
a-n Writer Development Programme for Arts Criticism, 2017
Royal Holloway Emerging Writer Fellowship, 2014
Selected Publications
Dark Mountain Issue 27: On Bodies, contributing editor, 2025 (upcoming)
The Volcano and the Bird, prose poem, DeathWrites newspaper, 2024
Strange Cartographies: the Paintings of Carol Rhodes, Kelvingrove Review, 2022
People of the Long Word - thoughts on Georgian language, literature and translation, Poetry Translation Centre, 2022
Death Mudra, Bhumisparsha, 2020
Extra Ordinary Times: Notes from North London, St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, 2020
Interview with Conch, 2019
Leap of Faith, Dark Mountain, 2018
Deptford X arts festival review, commissioned by a-n News, 2018
Émile Zola: A Distillation of Experience, catalogue essay on Zola’s photography, commissioned by Galerie Daniel Blau, 2018
The Photographs of Émile Zola, published by the Zola Society of London Bulletin, 2018
Questions, Gestures - Learning from the Bees - Netherlands conference reflections, published by Natural Bee Husbandry magazine, 2018
Manifesta 12 Palermo arts festival review, a-n News, 2018
Seeing, Listening, Telling, Natural Beekeeping Trust, 2018
Holon, editor and contributor, monograph on art and ecology, published by Bee Time, 2018
The Art of Incarceration: representation and rehabilitation in UK prisons, a-n News, 2018
The Come Down, Dark Mountain Issue 13, 2018
Jewish Furniture Workers in the East End, Raw Materials exhibition catalogue essay, Nunnery Gallery, 2017
The Failure of Medicine (poem) and Blue World (painting), *82 Review, 2017
Black Seed, published in Nature and Death, Corbel Stone Press Contemporary Poetry Series, 2017
There’s Something Wrong with the Bees: On Sun Hives and Crisis Houses, Dark Mountain, 2017
She works in the medical humanities, exploring intersections of arts, culture, politics, environment and health
Her practice encompasses creative non-fiction, poetry, visual arts, performance, bodywork and philosophy
Residencies and Fellowships
Pilotenküche, Leipzig, Germany, 2024 (upcoming)
Harry Ransom Center Research Fellowship in the Humanities, Supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Research Fellowship Endowment, University of Texas, Austin, 2024
Live Art Desk Scheme, LADA, London, 2023
Joya: arte + ecología, Spain, 2022
Centre for Medical Humanities and Bioethics, Linköping, Sweden, 2022
Writers’ House, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2022
Arteles Creative Centre Alumni Assistant, Finland, 2018-2019
ArtHouse Jersey, collaborative performance residency with Karen Le Roy Harris, Jersey, 2018
Artist in residence at St Katharine’s Precinct, London, 2015-2018
Bee Time ecological residency for artists, Vejer de la Frontera, Spain, 2017
Arteles Creative Centre Residency, Finland, 2017
Cove Park, Scotland, 2014
Poetry residential with Tom Leonard and Liz Lochhead, Moniack Mhor, Scotland, 2012
Grants and Awards
University of Glasgow, College of Arts Research Support Award, 2024
Dissertation Fellowship, Harry Ransom Center, 2024
The Politics of Art & Social Change: Rights in Focus Conference Bursary, 2023
BJCEM Uncivilised Paradigms conference participation award, 2022
Arts Council England, Project Grant, 2022
University of Glasgow, College of Arts Research Support Award, 2022
a-n Artist Bursary, R&D supporting new work in sculpture, 2022
Turing Scheme, doctoral mobility award, 2022
a-n Artist Biennial Bursary, Manifesta, Palermo, Italy, 2018
Arts Council England, Grants for the Arts, 2017
a-n Writer Development Programme for Arts Criticism, 2017
Royal Holloway Emerging Writer Fellowship, 2014
Selected Publications
Dark Mountain Issue 27: On Bodies, contributing editor, 2025 (upcoming)
The Volcano and the Bird, prose poem, DeathWrites newspaper, 2024
Strange Cartographies: the Paintings of Carol Rhodes, Kelvingrove Review, 2022
People of the Long Word - thoughts on Georgian language, literature and translation, Poetry Translation Centre, 2022
Death Mudra, Bhumisparsha, 2020
Extra Ordinary Times: Notes from North London, St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, 2020
Interview with Conch, 2019
Leap of Faith, Dark Mountain, 2018
Deptford X arts festival review, commissioned by a-n News, 2018
Émile Zola: A Distillation of Experience, catalogue essay on Zola’s photography, commissioned by Galerie Daniel Blau, 2018
The Photographs of Émile Zola, published by the Zola Society of London Bulletin, 2018
Questions, Gestures - Learning from the Bees - Netherlands conference reflections, published by Natural Bee Husbandry magazine, 2018
Manifesta 12 Palermo arts festival review, a-n News, 2018
Seeing, Listening, Telling, Natural Beekeeping Trust, 2018
Holon, editor and contributor, monograph on art and ecology, published by Bee Time, 2018
The Art of Incarceration: representation and rehabilitation in UK prisons, a-n News, 2018
The Come Down, Dark Mountain Issue 13, 2018
Jewish Furniture Workers in the East End, Raw Materials exhibition catalogue essay, Nunnery Gallery, 2017
The Failure of Medicine (poem) and Blue World (painting), *82 Review, 2017
Black Seed, published in Nature and Death, Corbel Stone Press Contemporary Poetry Series, 2017
There’s Something Wrong with the Bees: On Sun Hives and Crisis Houses, Dark Mountain, 2017
Selected Exhibitions / Readings / Performances
Defence Mechanisms, solo, Avalon, London, 2023
Tending, performance, Joya: arte + ecología, Spain, 2022
Mind - be here, present / be here now, Kingshill House, Gloucestershire, 2022
Meeting Ground, duo with Joseph Ridgeon, Project Space Wapping, London, 2018
All Bodies One Body, solo, St Katharine’s Precinct, London, 2018
Sin Falta, installation, Los Molinos, Santa Lucía, Spain, 2017
North South East West, performance, Fundación NMAC Montenmedio Arte Contemporáneo, Spain, 2017
Kingsley Hall group exhibition, London, 2017
The Time Machine, exhibition and publication, Contains Art, Watchet, Somerset, 2017
44 Ideas for Viadellafucina16, Turin, Italy, 2017
Concept, group exhibition, The Depot, London, 2016
Centre for Creative Collaboration, London, 2015
Bowery Poetry Club, New York, 2014
Small Publishers Fair, Conway Hall, London, 2014
Peckham Pelican, London, 2014
The Alchemy of Forgotten Things, sculptural installation, Regent’s Canal Festival, London 2012
Selected Teaching / Talks / Events
Comparative Literature - Introduction to Literary Criticism and Theory, School of Modern Languages & Cultures, University of Glasgow, Scotland, 2025 (upcoming)
Demilitarisation for Climate Justice, talk presented with Paula Shaw on behalf of WILPF UK, MSc Security, Peace-building and Diplomacy, Loughborough University, 2024
Live Night, Poetry and Performance event, Avalon, London, 2023
A Celebration of Georgian Poetry and Music, St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, London, 2023
Cultural Representations of Death and Dying, University of Glasgow MSc End of Life Studies, University of Glasgow, Scotland, 2023
Bees, Bodies, Buildings: Agency and Care in Architecture, Uncivilised Paradigms conference, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy 2022
Joya: arte + ecología, artist talk, Los Gázquez, Almería, Spain 2022
Generous Emptiness: sculptural and architectural encounters, artist talk, The Posthumanities Hub & The Eco- and Bioart Lab Hybrid Seminar, Linköping University, Sweden, 2022
Centre for Medical Humanities and Bioethics Seminar, Linköping University, Sweden, 2022
Collisions and Collages: Montage, narrative and text-image dialogues, writing workshop, University of Glasgow, Scotland, 2022
‘Expert Interviews’ on works by authors Mark Doty and Naja Marie Aidt, MSc End of Life Studies, University of Glasgow, Scotland, 2022
Education
Doctoral candidate
University of Glasgow, Scotland
MA Poetic Practice, with Distinction
Royal Holloway, University of London
BA Philosophy
Barnard College, Columbia University, New York
Dance Movement Psychotherapy Foundation
Goldsmiths, University of London
ITEC Holistic Massage
City Lit, London
Peer Learning
Uncivilised Paradigms, Biennale des Jeunes Créateurs de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée, 2022
Radical Resilience, St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, 2020
Of Mythmakers and Shape Shifters, performance intensive, LISPA, Berlin, 2018
Limehouse Writers’ Circle, founder and group coordinator, 2016-2018
Professional Associations and Memberships
International Association for Environmental Philosophy (IAEP)
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF UK)
Glasgow End of Life Studies Group
Glasgow Medical Humanities Network
FHT Federation of Holistic Therapists
a-n Artist Information Company
Associate of Cove Park, Scotland
Defence Mechanisms, solo, Avalon, London, 2023
Tending, performance, Joya: arte + ecología, Spain, 2022
Mind - be here, present / be here now, Kingshill House, Gloucestershire, 2022
Meeting Ground, duo with Joseph Ridgeon, Project Space Wapping, London, 2018
All Bodies One Body, solo, St Katharine’s Precinct, London, 2018
Sin Falta, installation, Los Molinos, Santa Lucía, Spain, 2017
North South East West, performance, Fundación NMAC Montenmedio Arte Contemporáneo, Spain, 2017
Kingsley Hall group exhibition, London, 2017
The Time Machine, exhibition and publication, Contains Art, Watchet, Somerset, 2017
44 Ideas for Viadellafucina16, Turin, Italy, 2017
Concept, group exhibition, The Depot, London, 2016
Centre for Creative Collaboration, London, 2015
Bowery Poetry Club, New York, 2014
Small Publishers Fair, Conway Hall, London, 2014
Peckham Pelican, London, 2014
The Alchemy of Forgotten Things, sculptural installation, Regent’s Canal Festival, London 2012
Selected Teaching / Talks / Events
Comparative Literature - Introduction to Literary Criticism and Theory, School of Modern Languages & Cultures, University of Glasgow, Scotland, 2025 (upcoming)
Demilitarisation for Climate Justice, talk presented with Paula Shaw on behalf of WILPF UK, MSc Security, Peace-building and Diplomacy, Loughborough University, 2024
Live Night, Poetry and Performance event, Avalon, London, 2023
A Celebration of Georgian Poetry and Music, St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, London, 2023
Cultural Representations of Death and Dying, University of Glasgow MSc End of Life Studies, University of Glasgow, Scotland, 2023
Bees, Bodies, Buildings: Agency and Care in Architecture, Uncivilised Paradigms conference, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy 2022
Joya: arte + ecología, artist talk, Los Gázquez, Almería, Spain 2022
Generous Emptiness: sculptural and architectural encounters, artist talk, The Posthumanities Hub & The Eco- and Bioart Lab Hybrid Seminar, Linköping University, Sweden, 2022
Centre for Medical Humanities and Bioethics Seminar, Linköping University, Sweden, 2022
Collisions and Collages: Montage, narrative and text-image dialogues, writing workshop, University of Glasgow, Scotland, 2022
‘Expert Interviews’ on works by authors Mark Doty and Naja Marie Aidt, MSc End of Life Studies, University of Glasgow, Scotland, 2022
Education
Doctoral candidate
University of Glasgow, Scotland
MA Poetic Practice, with Distinction
Royal Holloway, University of London
BA Philosophy
Barnard College, Columbia University, New York
Dance Movement Psychotherapy Foundation
Goldsmiths, University of London
ITEC Holistic Massage
City Lit, London
Peer Learning
Uncivilised Paradigms, Biennale des Jeunes Créateurs de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée, 2022
Radical Resilience, St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, 2020
Of Mythmakers and Shape Shifters, performance intensive, LISPA, Berlin, 2018
Limehouse Writers’ Circle, founder and group coordinator, 2016-2018
Professional Associations and Memberships
International Association for Environmental Philosophy (IAEP)
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF UK)
Glasgow End of Life Studies Group
Glasgow Medical Humanities Network
FHT Federation of Holistic Therapists
a-n Artist Information Company
Associate of Cove Park, Scotland