Studio Index

Wider Artistic Practice

Studio Index

2025 Chemist Gallery, London Studio Index

The Flip Side of the Coin

Site-specific performance and live-feed video installation

The Flip Side of the Coin transformed Chemist Gallery by bringing its formal exhibition space into collision with the domestic rooms hidden above it. Across two floors, ten artists moved between performance, rehearsal, personal material and improvisation, while two live cameras transmitted actions between the spaces. The audience circulated throughout the building, becoming part of a shifting relationship between performer, observer and camera. The project developed from Norman Mine’s interest in expanding the idea of the backstage: the space where uncertainty, vulnerability, preparation and failure are normally concealed from the finished image. Downstairs, performances took place within the formal gallery; upstairs, the domestic space became a less controlled environment where artists could experiment with lived experience, personal storyboards and different forms of presence. After the live event, traces remained throughout the gallery through projections, sound, scaffolding, objects and remnants of the performances, questioning what happens when a temporary live encounter is translated into an image, object or archive. Curated by: Norman Mine Artists: Anahita Harding, Barney Pau, Dino Desica, Fiontán Bleau Moran, Gianna T, Hera Santos, Marf Summers, Natalie Price Hafslund, Tamu Nkiwane, Rosa Doornenbal Venue: Chemist Gallery, London Photography: Gray Carmen

Installation view of LIBERATING LOVE, 2025

11 to 23 February 2025 Studio Index

Liberating Love – 2025

Tracing queer histories across Croydon

Liberating Love brought together archival research, contemporary portraiture and public interventions to explore queer life in Croydon across generations. Developed in a borough with few dedicated queer cultural spaces, the project asked how histories that risk disappearing can be made visible and connected to the people living there now. At the Urban Room, an Evidence Wall assembled archival material tracing local LGBTQ+ histories, including figures such as Ray Harvey-Amer and Dare Truscott and the history of Pride in Croydon. Alongside this material, an open-call portrait project led by Croydon photographer Lukasz Izdebski photographed more than 40 local participants, creating a contemporary visual archive of Croydon’s queer community. The project extended beyond the exhibition space through banners installed in the streets of central Croydon carrying words from queer artists and writers. Workshops, talks and creative activities brought people together throughout the programme, allowing archival material, personal experience and contemporary queer life to exist alongside one another. Rather than treating queer history as something belonging only to the past, Liberating Love created a temporary space where different generations could encounter one another and contribute to an evolving record of queer presence in Croydon. Concept and curation: Norman Mine Portrait photography: Lukasz Izdebski Venue: Urban Room, Croydon Dates: 11–23 February 2025

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Installation view of LIBERATING LOVE, 2025

2022, ongoing, South Norwood, London  Studio Index

Norwood JunKAction – 2022 – ongoing

Social practice through waste, place and collective action

Founded by Norman Mine in South Norwood in 2022, Norwood JunKAction explores what can happen when a familiar community activity such as litter-picking is brought together with artistic practice. Environmental action becomes a starting point for meeting, exchanging ideas, experimenting with discarded materials and developing projects collectively. The project moves between weekly litter-picking, creative workshops, public artworks and collaborative projects. Collected and reclaimed materials are used as a way to think imaginatively about the environment and the places we share, while participants are invited to contribute through their own interests, abilities and knowledge. Projects can develop as one-off interventions or longer programmes, with their form and outcomes shaped collaboratively. Through this combination of practical action and creative exploration, Norwood JunKAction creates a platform where residents, artists, schools, organisations and volunteers can work alongside one another. Rather than separating environmental activity from artistic activity, the project brings the two together, using collective action as a way to generate relationships, ideas and new possibilities within the neighbourhood. Founded by / Artistic lead: Norman Mine Established: 2022, South Norwood, London Selected support: National Lottery Community Fund, NHS, Stanley Arts, Croydon Borough of Culture Selected collaborations: Artangel, Mayor of London Community Weekend, London Mosaic Studios, Holmesdale Community Garden Norwood JunKAction website

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2018, The Cass, London Metropolitan University, London Studio Index

The World as a Stage – 2018

Site-specific moving-image installation, scaffolding and projection, 12 × 18 × 2 m

The World as a Stage was created for Norman Mine’s BA Fine Art degree show at Cass University in London. The installation responded directly to the uncertainty surrounding the university at the time, when the institution was facing possible closure despite substantial recent investment in its buildings. Outside the university, Norman constructed a large-scale scaffolding structure measuring approximately 12 × 18 × 2 metres. Deliberately left exposed and unfinished, the scaffolding echoed the instability of the institution itself and temporarily altered the architecture of the site. After dark, the structure became an open-air screen. Moving images documenting small, everyday moments from the surrounding community were projected onto it, shifting attention from the scale of the institution to the ordinary activities taking place around it. The work brought these two conditions together: an educational structure facing an uncertain future and the temporary, often unnoticed experiences of everyday life continuing around it. Rather than resolving this tension, The World as a Stage used the scaffolding as both physical structure and image surface, allowing construction, instability and daily life to occupy the same space. Concept and installation: Norman Mine Moving image: Norman Mine Presented as part of: BA Fine Art Degree Show Venue: Cass University, London Year: 2018 Dimensions: 12 × 18 × 2 m Materials: Scaffolding, moving-image projection

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2017, Platform One Gallery, Wandsworth Station, London Studio Index

Wai(s)ting Your Time Away – 2017

Site-specific installation exploring waiting, transition and suspended time

Wai(s)ting Your Time Away was a three-week site-specific installation created inside the former railway waiting room at Wandsworth Station. The work began with the everyday condition of the site itself: a place designed for people to remain temporarily while waiting to continue somewhere else. A large wooden jetty, approximately 400 × 130 × 140 cm, emerged from the floor and extended towards the centre of the room. Visitors and passengers could walk or stand on the structure while waiting for their trains. Two fans generated a continuous movement of air between the end of the jetty and a blank white wall, while a theatrical spotlight and sound altered the atmosphere of the existing space. By relocating the familiar architecture of a jetty into a railway waiting room, the installation brought together two structures associated with departure, transition and anticipation. The work asked whether time spent waiting is necessarily wasted, or whether waiting itself can become a space for observation, reflection and experience. Rather than removing people from the ordinary function of the station, Wai(s)ting Your Time Away worked within it, temporarily shifting how an everyday transitional space could be encountered. Concept and installation: Norman Mine Venue: Platform One Gallery, Wandsworth Station, London Year: 2017 Duration: Three weeks Dimensions: 400 × 130 × 140 cm Materials: Wooden jetty, two fans, theatrical spotlight, sound installation

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