Luce Choules’ work explores complexity and our relationship to dynamic earth processes, highlighting the impermanence of environmental and societal structures. Their spatial praxis, which brings together performance, photography, installation, sound and writing, responds to the pressures of maintaining stability with/in an aggregate of material continuously in motion.

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BIO

Luce Choules (b. 1968) is an itinerant artist and writer currently working between the UK, France and Spain. Since 2013, they founded and coordinate the international artist network TSOEG.org; co-founded sonic arts collective SEL__NOIR in 2022, and curatorial collective MASS Project in 2023. They are a regular collaborator with AADK performance platform in Spain, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London, UK, and director of Alpine School of Art.

Their concept album ‘REGOLITHIC’ – a collaboration with performance artist, music producer and DJ Roisner – has been presented in numerous iterations since its inception, most recently at ALTER- Switzerland public events programme, POLLEN (Political Ecology Network) online exhibition and symposiums, PRAKSIS Oslo PDF sessions; also Raeve Party Chandolin Switzerland, Guru Dance Club and Moss Murcia Spain. Other works include the broadcasting of ‘Radio Silence’ on Arts Catalyst Radio London and Radiophrenia at Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow as part of Nastassja Simensky’s ‘Leaky Transmissions’ project.

Luce Choules has been awarded significant grants from Arts Council England, British Council, Arts Council Ireland, Acción Cultural Española, Ministère de la Culture, Canton du Valais / Kanton Wallis, Govern d’Andorra, and National Endowment for the Arts USA. They have been supported through numerous commissions and undertaken many research and process-led residencies including ALTER- Switzerland, Askeaton Contemporary Arts Ireland, Hangar Barcelona, Hablarenarte Madrid, Aqtushetii Georgia, and Rabbit Island USA. Their work has been performed, presented, screened and exhibited internationally with organisations including Arts Catalyst, Heritage Futures, Archaeology-Heritage-Arts (AHA) Research Network UCL, MIMA, Baltic 39, GroundWork Gallery, Royal Geographical Society, Biennal Internacional d’Andorra, AADK Spain, DeVos Art Museum USA, and numerous academic institutions in Europe.

Their work is in collections across the UK, Europe and US, and their practice has been written about and featured in Critical Distance in Documentary Media (Palgrave Macmillan), Topografías de lo Invisible: Estrategias Críticas entre Arte y Geografía (Universitat de Barcelona), and Form, Art and the Environment: Engaging in Sustainability (Routledge), among others.

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FEATURED IN ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

       

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WORKS IN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Europe
CRP Hautes-de-France, Douchy-les-Mines, France
Hangar, Barcelona, Spain
Joya: arte + ecología, Cortijada Los Gázquez, Almería, Spain
Museu Molí Paperer de Capellades, Barcelona, Spain
Parc naturel régional Scarpe-Escaut, Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, France

UK
Airspace Gallery, Stoke on Trent | Bath Spa University Art Collection, Bath | Burton Art Gallery and Museum, Devon | Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, Shropshire | King’s College London Special Collections, London | Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), London | University of Lincoln Art Collection, Lincoln

USA and Australia
DeVos Art Museum, Marquette, Michigan
Rabbit Island Foundation, Lake Superior, Michigan
Verge Gallery Special Collection, University of Sydney

Libraries
British Library | Bodleian Library Oxford University | Cambridge University Library | National Library of Scotland | National Library of Wales | Oxford Brookes University Library | Trinity College Dublin | University of Brighton Arts Library

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EXPEDITIONS

Using an expedition format in their artistic practice, Luce Choules has developed a wide range of performance surveys and artist-led fieldwork activities. They have made extensive bodies of work in locations across the UK, France and Spain; and in Belgium, Georgia, Greece, Portugal, Switzerland and the USA; and since the late 80s, they have also conducted outdoor research through travels in Italy, Mallorca, Morocco, Wales, several islands of Greece, and the Arctic Circle in Finland and Sweden.

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SURVEYS

Belgium
Hainaut

France
Ariège / Argentière / Aude / Belcaire / Bélesta / Chamonix / Douchy-les-Mines / Haute-Savoie / Languedoc-Roussillon / les Bois / le Lavancher / les Tines / Massif des Aiguilles Rouges / Massif du Mont-Blanc / Midi-Pyrenees / Montbel / Nord / Paris / Pas-de-Calais / Pech de Bugarach / Puivert / Pyrenees-Orientales / Savoie

Georgia
Tushetti / Tbilisi

Greece
Athens / Sounion

Portugal
Barreiro / Lisbon

Spain
Aberan / Almería / Archena / Barcelona / Berga / Blanca / Calders / Cap de Creus / Catalan Pyrenees / Cieza / Farrera / Girona / Jumilla / Madrid / Montnegre / Montsant / Murcia / Ojós / Pallars Sobirà / Tarragona / Ulea / Vèlez-Blanco / Vèlez-Rubio / Villanueva del Río Segura

Switzerland
Ayer / Chandolin / Fang / Grimentz / La Combaz / Les Morands / Mission / Pinsec / Saint-Jean / Saint-Luc / Sierre / Sion / Soussillon / Vissoie / Zinal / Valais

UK
Ashdon / Bideford / Cambridge / Devon / Edenbridge / Essex / Eston Hills / Faversham / Folkestone / Green Cliff / Ironbridge / Kent / London / North Pennines / North Yorkshire / Margate / Middlesbrough / Oare / Redcar & Cleveland / Royal Tunbridge Wells / Saffron Walden / Sevenoaks / Shropshire / The Swale / Whitstable

USA
Calumet / Lake Superior / Marquette / Michigan / Rabbit Island

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Situated at the intersection of ecological, archaeological and geologic thinking, Choules’ artistic research engages with the structures of tourist mechanisms and emerging habitats of industrial detritus, social geography and the unearthed substance of cultural heritage, and the massive gravity-based movements of mountain systems to reflect on the construction of socio-environmental discourse and its relation to physical matter. [see all research projects]

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