Feeney Fellows 2024
Trustees are delighted to announce that the 2024 Feeney Fellowships have been awarded to
Rachael Colley and Sima Gonsai
Sima Gonsai
Sima Gonsai is a West Midlands-based multi-disciplinary artist, screendance director and programmer.
Her work is rooted in collaboration, with a commitment to connecting human experience, people and place. Her working process varies with each project; from narrative-led storytelling and the visceral language of movement, contemporary dance and film to connect with her subjects or themes; to collaborate with differently-abled artists; international communities; trained dancers; or a combination of many of these processes at once.
At the heart of her practice is a desire to experiment with digital and inclusive ways of storytelling, where deep human narratives are told through the medium of multimedia, dance and film. Her work is rooted in presenting intergenerational social and cultural experiences and explores bodily signatures to tell stories about sustainability, people and place.
Rachael Colley
Rachael thinks through materials and making, producing artefacts and sculpture which are explored in experimental dining events, exhibitions, installations and visual art projects. Her practice investigates her personal experience of the auto-immune disease systemic sclerosis, a condition which causes internal skins and muscles to atrophy over time, with changes to her gastro-intestinal tract having led to disordered eating. Through materiality and form she expresses interoceptive, internal sensations with the aim of communicating something of her own bodily experience. She encourages open discussion around chronic long-term health conditions through reflective play, inviting the viewer/wearer/user to evaluate and re-value their eating experiences.