Mathew Wayne Parkin
PhD Project Title: Sweating
Fine Art Postgraduate Researcher
Supervisors- Dr Fiona Anderson and Dr Giles Bailey
Mathew Wayne Parkin is a sodden artist, suspicious writer and sometimes researcher. They often work with experimental moving-image as part of an expanded practice that encompasses exhibition making, relationships, writing and programming. Parkin is particularly interested in autobiography, intimacy and speech. Resisting dominant and professionalised forms of media and moving image production, Parkin embraces DIY and home video techniques, as well as queer crip analysis. Their work is like an armpit, personal and intimate, of the body and relationships – smelling earthy.
In 2016 a gay sauna located in a former bingo hall in the working-class area of Armley in West Yorkshire, burned down. In my practice-based PhD project, using strategies associated with true crime and artists moving-image, I will explore the creative value of true crime, queer inter-generational mutual aid, and touch through this unsolved mystery. It will interrogate who gets to tell stories and how, by decentring autobiography in favour of a communal voice and shared personal experiences.
Presentations:
Parkin has shared work with Cubitt Gallery; York St John University; Perverse Collections: Building Europe’s Queer and Trans Archives; LUX; Videoclub; Book Works; V22 Foundation; IMT Gallery; Grand Union; Workplace Gallery; MAP Magazine, Embassy Gallery; Spike Island; Eastside Projects; Tramway; S1 Artspace; the ICA; and undertaken residencies at Triangle France – Astérides; Hospitalfield Arts; and Cove Park.
