Hello Readers,
I hope you’ve been having a nice quiet Christmas etc. I’ve eaten my bodyweight in cheese, but also almost emptied my email inbox. Swings and roundabouts…?
I’ll put out an ‘every book I read last year’ post at some point… next year, because I’ve got one book I’d like to finish before midnight, but in the meantime, some thoughts on 2025?
I made two films this year, but there are a few more in the works that might eventually get finished. Equally to blame for this productivity drop are a) a more exciting personal life than I’d anticipated, and b) I started playing Stardew Valley. Anyway, while writing what’s below here, it looks like stuff actually did happen in 2025, so here’s a little story of the highlights:
Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival, Hawick
It was really lovely to jump into spring by sharing Landscape Landscape at Alchemy’s annual festival. I was inspired by the 2024 installations that offered a place to step out of the busy festival, to relax and to hide away in a nature-like place, especially for people that might not be able to get into woodlands very often. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll Alchemy is always awesome, and I’m pretty certain I made it to every thing in the programme (sadly there’s no brownie badges for this achievement).
Photo: Sanne Gault
Full of Noises, Barrow-in-Furnesss
In July, I visited Barrow-in-Furness, which is home to Full of Noises, an arts organisation that works mostly with experimental music and sound art, but is also venturing into experimental films (lucky for me!) Sophie Broadgate, their Assistant Producer, invited me down to share a selection of films, including Axes and Eggs, which I finished in 2024. The film started off being about frustration and anger, and turned into a film about play and games and joyful exploration. Maybe making videos makes people happy?
On the way there, I went for a river swim with my partner, got bitten by a horsefly on the forehead, and then got held up by a thousand horses at Langholm Common Riding, but miraculously, the red lump had vanished by the time we arrived, and we were there in time to find Piel View House, Full of Noises’ HQ and performance space, located in Barrow Park, and eat dinner. The screening was really lovely, with a good turnout and some really thought-provoking questions and comments from the audience. FoN really looked after us and made the trip a really lovely one, complete with swimming spot recommendations. I was also honoured and amused to find the leaflet for my screening was advertised on had me on one side in heat-vision mode, removing a layer of clothing, and Tilda Swinton on the other. It’s possibly the closest I’ll get to an Oscar.
Bodies in Water, River Tweed
Bodies in Water was produced over the summer while I was on the Watery Commons residency with Connecting Threads, an arts project that’s working along the length of the River Tweed, from its source near Moffat, to where it meets the sea in Berwick. I cannot state clearly enough that being paid a fee to complete a proposal, after an initial application stage with a short brain-dump of what I’d like to think about if I got onto the residency was the key to being able to make a complete film by the end of the summer. That initial time to develop an idea from some vague thoughts and directions my work had been heading in, into a proposal, along with mind map of lines of enquiry, images and thought-out connections to the themes I wanted to explore in relation to the brief provided was the most productive of the residency, and meant I could hit the ground running when it started. Even if I’d not been offered a place on the residency, with being treated seriously as a worker to put the proposal together would have been enough to leave me happy, and I probably would have followed some of those threads into work that I might have done in the slow, self-directed way most of my films come about. The residency fee (at SAU rates) also let me take the leap to take on a rented studio in Hawick, thus letting me get on with things without falling over all of my books and pencils and mess at home.
The residency started with an ‘Encounters Week’, an intensive, and very wholesome week living beside the Tweed with the 5 other resident artists – Miwa Nagato-Apthorp, Sam Gillespie, Anna Chapman-Parker, Georgie Fay, and Emily Cropton. We got to spend time together, talk about ideas, and learn about each others’ proposals and plans for the residency once we’d parted ways to complete it to our own timelines across the summer.
I then went to the USA for 3 weeks (see Flag Film)
Aaand then came back to make the film, working on it between weekends and the day-job.
The film developed through a sketchbook (supplied by Connecting Threads, made by Felicity Bristow), which became my companion each time I encountered a river, along with my polaroid camera, and a rabbity puppet called Bunnyboo. It moved from the mind-map to a pile of stories and essays and remembrances and speculations, before three characters emerged – a Present (basically me), a Future (an imaginary descendant, voiced by Miwa Nagato Apthorp), and an In-between, (someone dreaming watery dreams, voiced by Cooley Pasley). The film is in chapters, which also formed a publication, that tell something like a story of what the future of the various bodies in the tweed could be, and what some of their presents are like, and what some of its imaginary inhabitants could be up to. Think wild swimming, mermaids, salmon, otters, dead things, live things, minnow, trout, beavers, etc, etc etc.
The film was premiered at the Tweed River Festival, a beautiful celebration of all the work Connecting Threads had commissioned over the last year. As well as outcomes from the 6 resident artists, we were joined by the artists and musicians that have been working with Connecting Threads over the year for workshops, performances and lots of delicious food. Xuanlin Tham has written a lovely piece about it on their website.
This was also the launch of the Watery Commons publication (available to download on the Connecting Threads website – link below) – a gorgeously produced book including 8 commissioned texts around the residencies. It was a real pleasure to work with Milo Clenshaw as he wrote about and around my work on the river, and we talked about transformations and feeling at home in the water. We went on an imaginary swim across continents and floated into a common watery future.
Quiet Places Retreat, near Moffat
In August, I joined Emily Cropton’s weekend artists’ retreat in the hills near Moffat, and discovered I’m not as fit as I thought I was, but also spent time with an interesting bunch of people, exploring the uses of land in the area, and the practical realities of ownership and control over rural spaces (It’s not like the investment fund in London will even know if I wee behind their wall). We visited Merlin’s well, and the (maybe) magical Iron-rich spring, and experimented with scores for listening and moving and adjusting how we were experiencing the place we were in.
Studio, Hawick
My work’s now based from a room in ‘Coffin End’ in Hawick, a Victorian building that’s also home to an eyebrow technician and an excellent café. I wish every artist could have their own space, outside of their home to work from, however many hours they actually manage to put into their practice each week, for that dedicated space makes projects so much easier to focus on. It’s also so good to have space to leave mess behind in, with things unfinished, and lovely to be able to welcome in visitors and sell a few things sometimes.
Flag Film, Southern USA
Flag Film was filmed over my first trip to the USA, between Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas – mostly from a car, and put together back home in Scotland, while watching some animals for friends. It’s my second ‘Christmas Card’ film, and I’d really like to produce one each year, but it takes a while to figure them out. I should probably try to get onto it early for 2026.
Links:
Alchemy Film & Arts: https://alchemyfilmandarts.org.uk
Full of Noises: https://www.fonfestival.org
Sophie Broadgate: https://pikaiafilms.co.uk
Connecting Threads: https://www.tweedriverculture.org
Milo Clenshaw – The Murky Water Below Us: https://www.tweedriverculture.org/journal/milo-clenshaw-jessie-growden-murky-water-below
Emily Cropton: https://www.emilycropton.com
Bodies in Water: https://jgrowden.com/bodies-in-water/ (with a 2-minute trailer, do get in touch if you’d like to see a full preview for programming purposes!)
Flag Film: https://jgrowden.com/flag-film/
Jessie Growden 