Michelle Atherton
Senior Lecturer in Fine Art
- Sheffield Creative Industries Institute
- Department of Art and Design
- Art Design and Media Ï㽶ÊÓƵ Centre
- Culture and Creativity Ï㽶ÊÓƵ Institute
Summary
I am an artist and academic interested in the complex relationships, material dynamics and contradictions at play in day-to-day experiences and phenomena. I make artwork that uses a remix aesthetic, often combining images, text and located sounds. The aim is to look again at matters that seem settled, beyond question, but where inherent instability opens into other questions of material states, refusals, politics, and collective reimaging.
My current research considers the impact art practice research can have on global environmental challenges; experimenting what might lie beyond human perception and how we might undo reductive binaries between the living and the non-living.
My work has exhibited and presented widely in Europe including galleries, museums, festivals, conferences and through publications. I was awarded an Early Career Ï㽶ÊÓƵ and Innovation Fellowship from Ï㽶ÊÓƵ and my artwork and research is supported by funding from National Lottery and Arts Council England, the UKRI: Arts & Humanities Ï㽶ÊÓƵ Council and a series of international residencies.
About
I am an artist and academic interested in the complex relations, material dynamics and contradictions at play in day-to-day phenomena and experiences. My works use a remix aesthetic often incorporating image, text, and found sound and the material particularities of technology to create fragmented narratives and atmospherics as hooks to explore slippery perceptions and engagements with the world.
The format for each work is dependent on the research enquiry, with pieces ranging from single screen video works to largescale wall drawings, multi-screen installations with musical soundtracks and randomised lighting effects to performative events, sound works, live broadcasts and sited interventions.
Recent pieces have ranged from participatory artworks: 'The Soil Séance Sessions' (2023-ongoing), where individuals spend time listening to the ground beneath their feet & accompanying LP due for release in 2025; 'Celebratory Gathering', bringing people together to pay tribute to the dead, across species, structures and social formations. To Installations: 'The Repository of Irrational Gestures (RIGS)' (2019), in the form of an imaginary archive made up of ‘irrational gestures’, where an absurdist collage of image, text, sound and light effects interrogate different types of actions and knowledge formations; 'Absorbing red photons' (2018) a video installation exploring how we conceptualise and imagine the ocean’s depths using footage from a submersible 2,000ft below sea level.
The aim with all the works is to look again at matters that seem settled, beyond question, but where inherent instability opens into other questions of material states, refusals, politics, and collective imaginaries. The aim with all the works is to look again at matters that seem settled, beyond question, but where inherent instability opens into other questions of material states, refusals, politics, and collective imaginaries.
Venues for these pieces and commissions include the Museum for Sepulkralkultur, Germany; Grand Union Gallery, Birmingham; Black Mountain College USA & art.earth, UK; Spor Klübü, Berlin; Viborg Kunsthal Denmark; Atelier Salzamt Gallery and Kunstraum Gallery, Austria; MAW, Middlesborough Art Festival & Tatton Park Biennale, U.K; Kino Babylon, Berlin; Linergallari Tallinn, Estonia; and Dagmar de Pooter Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium.
My artistic research has been supported through international residencies most recently at Aqtushetii, Georgia and BANFF, Centre for Arts, Canada and an ECRI Fellowship Award from Ï㽶ÊÓƵ. My research is regularly presented at international conferences and symposia and funded by Arts Council England and UKRI: Arts and Humanities Ï㽶ÊÓƵ Council.
Senior Lecturer
Teaching
Sheffield Creative Industries Institute , Department of Art and Design
College of Social Sciences and Arts
Subject area
Fine Art
Courses
MFA & MA Fine Art
Postgraduate Ï㽶ÊÓƵ
Modules
Module Leader: Art Practice –MFA/MA 1st year studio practice module
Contributing to following modules:
Art
Arts & It’s Publics
Studio Methods
Ï㽶ÊÓƵ
- Art and Design Ï㽶ÊÓƵ Centre
- Culture and Creativity Ï㽶ÊÓƵ Institute
Current research project:
'Ecstatic Rot': artistic research investigating our relationships with transience, decomposition and re-composition as more-than-human activities through experimental artistic audio methods. The work involves finding experimental ways to explore ephemera: the loss and flows of materialities, including cycles of transformation across species and substances. Alighting on those things and actions that challenge simplistic divisions between what might be identified as living and non-living. It draws on postnatural frameworks, deep listening practices, located audio recordings, deep listening practices and intermittent attention spans.
This research has resulting in a new diverse body of related artworks using intimate and experimental listening practices to engage diverse audiences through a range of purely auditory experiences. The purpose of this approach is to re-imagine our relationships with ecological environments and ourselves. The work considers the impact art practice research can have on the challenges presented by global climate change and explores low carbon research and artistic strategies.
Related research 2025
Exhibition: 'Soil Séance Sessions': Sound Installation & Live Performance & LP Release
As part of Feb & June 2025
Audio Performance: Listening Lounge II – New Audio Performance at Abney Cemetery Park, London August 2025.
The Growing Project, Grand Union Gallery, Birmingham
New Artwork: Podcast for Grand Unions’ Ecology & Recorded Stories Podcast series October
Live Participatory Audio Artwork: Soil Séance Sessions - Thinking in Circles 23-25 May, Od Arts Festival, Somerset 2025
Featured research projects 2023-24
Exhibition:
As part of You, Life and Finitude Exhibition, Museum fur Sepulkralktur Feb & June 2025
Participatory Audio Artwork: , 2023-ongoing,
Where to date over hundred individuals have spent time listening to the ground across: 7 Boroughs in London; Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, London, 33rd International Summer Academy, University for Music & Performing Arts Vienna, Austria 2023, Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park; , London & Cemeteries across Kassel, Germany 2024
Global Live Broadcast: Reveil’s 24hr Worldwide Dawn Chorus Day
& , London 2024 in partnership with Soundtent
Listening Party: Ï㽶ÊÓƵ Residency 2024-5
Conference Papers:
‘The Invite, the Impetus & the Chat’ Borrowed Time Borrowed Time: Death, Dying & Change Symposium, Dartington Hall, UK, online 2021
‘Low Frequencies: A speculative relationship with transience. Paper delivered Association of Social Anthropologist’s 2023: An Unwell World?, SOAS, London
Paper being submitted for publication.
Book Chapter: ‘The Invite, the Impetus & the Chat’ in R.Povall & M. Osmond (Eds.) Borrowed Time: Death, Dying and Change art.earth 2022
Event: Celebratory Gathering: LIVE from the Rowan Tree and the International Space Station’ at Borrowed Time: Death, Dying & Change Programmed Event, Dartington Hall, UK Oct 2021
Collaborators and sponsors
Current research has been supported through a grant by Arts Council England, SHU ECRI Fellowship Scheme, Commission Museum fur Sepulkralktur, Germany; Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, Tower Hamlets Cemtery Park, Abney Park Trust, Eden Valley Natural Burial Ground, The Growing Project, Grand Union Gallery, Birmingham and Soundtent.
Publications
Key Publications
Atherton, M. (2015). . E.R.O.S. Homotopia, (6), 217-222.
Conference papers
Atherton, M. (2015). . In Space and Place Project: 6th Global Meeting, Mansfield College, Oxford University, U.K, 3 September 2015 - 5 September 2015.
Atherton, M. (2014). . In Waterwheel World Water Day Symposium 2014 – 3WDS14, Online Symposium across 30 countries from 5 continents, 17 March 2015 - 23 March 2015.
Atherton, M. (2018). Submersive Aesthetics. In 2018 Liquidscapes: Tales and telling of watery worlds and fluid states, International Conference, Dartington Hall, UK, 20 June 2018 - 22 June 2018.
Atherton, M. (2018). Submersive Aesthetics. In Rendering (the) Visible III: Liquidity Conference, Georgia State University, Atlanta USA, 8 February 2018 - 10 February 2018.
Atherton, M. (2012). Absorbing Red Photons. In Water: Image International Conference, Plymouth, UK, 4 July 2012 - 6 July 2012.
Book chapters
Atherton, M. (2022). . In Povall, R., & Osmond, M. (Eds.) Borrowed time: on death, dying and change. art.earth:
Atherton, M. (2021). Park. In Shifting Horizons: Women's Landscape Photography Now. (pp. 62-65).
Atherton, M. (2015). . In Fuks, S. (Ed.) Water Views : Caring and Daring : Waterwheel World Water Day Symposium 2014 : 3WDS14. (pp. 293-295). Australia: Igneous Incorporated:
Theses / Dissertations
Griffin, J. (2022). . (Doctoral thesis). Supervised by Mccarthy, P., Ling, Y.F., & Atherton, M.
Artefacts
Atherton, M. (2019). . [Performative Lecture].
Atherton, M. (2019). . [Looped video work installed in largescale printed imaged with accompanying lights].
Atherton, M. (2018). . [Video installation looped video with spasmodic disco lights].
Atherton, M. (2018). . [Single screen video installation (15mins)].
Atherton, M. (2017). . [Video installation].
Atherton, M., & McCormack, T.C. (2015). . [A site-specific sculpture].
Exhibitions
Atherton, M. (2005). . [Portfolio]. Millais Gallery, Southampton.
Atherton, M. (2007). . [Portfolio]. Linnagalerii, Tallinna Kunsiihoone, Tallinn, Estonia.
Atherton, M. (2011). . [DVD]. Zeppelin Musuem, Friedrichshaven, Germany.
Shaw, B., & Atherton, M. (2013). . [Live discursive event]. Centre for Creative Collaboration, London, WC1X 9NG.
McCormack, T.C., & Atherton, M. (2015). . [Multiple. including DVD, Print, Assemblage, Drawings]. Atelierhaus Salzamt gallery, Linz, Austria.
Atherton, M., & McCormack, T.C. (2016). . Kunstraum, Linz, Austria.
Atherton, M., McCormack, T.C., & Gejl, J. (2018). . [Mixed media]. Viborg Kunsthal, Denmark.
Performances
Atherton, M. (2024). . Abney Park Cemetery, London, UK & Westfiredhof & Hauptfriedhof, Kassel, Germnay A Participatory Audio Artwork.
Atherton, M. (2024). . Abney Park Cemetery, London Audio.
Atherton, M. (2023). . Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Haringey, Wandsworth, Sutton & Newham & Vienna & Reichenau an der Rax Audio.
Atherton, M. (2023). . Eden Valley Natural Burial Ground, Kent, UK Audio.
Atherton, M. (2021). . artdorearth; Dartington Hall, UK & Online
Media
Atherton, M. (2015). . [Single screen video work].
Presentations
Atherton, M. (2016). . Presented at: Submersive Aesthetics, University of Texas at Arlington, Dallas, U.S.A
Atherton, M., & McCormack, T.C. (2016). . Presented at: International Conference on Opportunities in the Arts: Expanding Worlds, Boston University’s College of Fine Arts
Other activities
I also convene an Extra Curricular group The Informal Gathering offering a spontaneous collective space for interested artists, students, academics and invited guests to engage with radical artistic approaches and methods to explore today’s complex relationship with the environment. An environment that challenges us as artists to experiment, discover, reuse or to leave things hidden. To explore old and new methods of creating, systems, and thinking. To consider not only actions but also inactions. To complicate modern dualisms between culture and nature, between the living bios, and non-living matter of geos (Lyons 2020).
These gatherings offer a space to come together as artists and use experimental methods to materially explore practices and questions provoked by climate change. Our aim is to wonder about responsibility, awareness, atmospheres, and where we might find the radical potential of carelessness. Where we mix matter and culture, myth and technology, science and fiction. To test different modes of perception and methods rooted across our practices as tools to re-approach our relations to the worlds in and around us.
Postgraduate supervision
Completed:
PhD: Jeanine Griffin Aura in the post-digital: a diffraction of the curatorial archive
MPhil: Jonathan Herring Photographic Exposure: A critique of the shopping centre
Current:
Daniel Bacchus - Translating Life Experiences into Experiential Narratives Through Designing for Presence in VR
Victoria Lucas - Reclamation Ground: Reconstituting Female Subjectivity through Artistic Practice
Aron Spall - Speculative Memory Renders: Digital Immersion & Interaction with Photographic Practices
Annie Watson - Cinematically reimagining the interiority of Bonjour Tristesse’s female protagonist, Cécile