Richard Coan
Artist in Residence

I process by making, exploring how we relate to ourselves and each other… as individuals, communities and cultures. How might we be more fully alive in our own lives, and in relationship with one another and the world?

Through my process of making, noticing and capturing, I explore my relationship with life. Sometimes this is a personal process; sometimes it unfolds through a residency, in conversation with people and places.

I’ve been making and experimenting for many years. More recently, I’ve begun to recognise that the residencies I’ve initiated to explore particular places and questions aren’t isolated projects, but part of a developing multidisciplinary artistic practice.

Artist Residencies

Residencies have become an important way of developing my artistic practice.

I approach places that interest me and create the time and space to spend time there, listening, making and responding to what emerges. Rather than arriving with a predetermined outcome, I allow the work to develop through the relationships, stories, rhythms and possibilities I encounter.

So far, I’ve explored this through residencies with communities, festivals, faith organisations and other place-based settings.

What might a residency reveal?

Every residency begins with curiosity.

The work often starts with something small: a conversation, an image, a person, a place, an observation. As I spend time with it, connections begin to emerge… between people, stories, histories, rhythms and possibilities.

Sometimes these discoveries raise questions of meaning, worth, connection and belonging. Sometimes they simply make me see a place differently.

With each residency, I hope to learn something about what it means to be human.

My Process: Making, Noticing, Capturing

The medium isn’t the starting point. It follows the enquiry. Photography, film, collage, sound, music, movement, writing and participatory practice become ways of exploring.

The artwork isn’t necessarily the end. It can become part of an ongoing conversation with a place, something to return to, share, question or see differently later.