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“I’m a huge champion of creativity – it’s the great unifier”

— Bethan Maddocks

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Bethan Maddocks is an artist who works with archives, communities and organisations to collect stories and make socially engaged, site-specific artwork.

Often working with light, paper, fabric and found objects she creates interactive, tactile sculpture and installations. Narratives gathered through conversation and collaborative making are constructed into playful, transformative artwork.

She works regularly with BALTIC centre of contemporary art, Museums Northumberland and various National Trust properties. She was shortlisted for the Culture Awards Artist of the Year 2022, is the 2019 winner of The Dover Prize, as well as winner of The Culture Award for Museum of the year 2019, for The Fallen Forest.

You can read interviews with Bethan here:

Culture Vulture: Artist Interview, Living North: Meet the Artist and Living North: Dark Skies Park

 
 

Artworks

 
 

Collaboration

 
 

Workshops

 
 

Residencies

 

Selected Artworks

 

Noctalgia

Commissioned by Northumberland National Park, 2023

Commissioned as part of Northumberland National Parks 10th anniversary as a International Dark Skies Park, Noctalgia celebrated the night sky and the changing relationship to darkness. 

Noctalgia is a new term invented by astronomers Aparna Venkatesan and John Barentine to describe the pain associated with losing access to the night sky due to light pollution: "noctalgia," meaning "sky grief." 

Referencing an Orrery, a mechanical model that maps the movements of stars, planets and moons, the kenetic light sculptures explored Northumbria’s  ecology and celestial connections.

 
 

Floraphone

Woodhorn Museum 2019

Commissioned by Woodhorn Museum “The Floraphone” was a site specific, interactive work combining moving sculpture, horticulture and sound, to playfully explore the internal life of plants.

Exhibited alongside Matt StokesThe Sound Mirror, it took inspiration from his research into the story of an orchid grown and named in honour of footballing legend Jackie Milburn.

The work featured sound design by Nick John William, and textiles elements created in collaboration with Catriona Maddocks and Amber Zamani-Esskeli.

 

The Caretakers

Chatsworth House, 2023

Two large scale papercuts commissioned for Christmas at Chatsworth: Palace of Advent.

The Caretakers was installed in the Chapel Corridor and responded to the historic houses’ art collection whilst simultaneously telling stories of the workers from the Estate; Chatsworth's caretakers.