Beyond the Trees - St Barbe Heritage Talk
Sway Village Hall, Sway, SO41 6BB
Wednesday 30th September 2026 7:30PM
Beyond the Trees
St Barbe Heritage Talk — Wednesday 30 September
Doors 7pm | Talk 7.30pm
Speakers are our friends from SPUD with their curator Tom Hall, Jim Mitchell (NFPA) and Dean Kelland (resident artist) - our Forest, its stories, its people and its structures to inspire art
We all appreciate our Forest. It’s an amazing sensual place of views, textures and smells, but of course it is much more.
For the last four years, the New Forest National Park Authority and the SPUD team have used artists to deep dive into our Forest, its stories, its people and its structures. In this talk, SPUD will discuss their artist-in-residence programme with the New Forest National Park Authority, including insights from past and current artists ahead of the new residency exhibition opening in October at spudWORKS.
This is a unique opportunity to look beyond the trees and discover the rich visual language that past residents have uncovered, as well as to meet and question the current artist-in-residence and some of the people behind the scenes who help make the programme happen.
Speakers Bio
Tom Hall is currently curator at spudWORKS, helping build an interesting and relevant programme of exhibitions for Sway and its region. He is also an artist of 25 years and has shown work internationally in Europe and America.
Dean Kelland is a UK-based interdisciplinary artist whose practice incorporates performance, photography, print, collage and filmmaking. His work interrogates the intersections of taste, class, and social history, offering nuanced observations on the construction of collective and mediated identities. With an exhibition record that spans national and international venues, Kelland has held notable residencies at The New Art Gallery Walsall and the Birmingham & Midland Institute. From 2019 to 2023, he completed a landmark four-year residency at HMP Grendon, supported by Ikon Gallery and the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust. During this tenure, he established the first contemporary art gallery within an operational UK prison—an initiative that included a dedicated workshop space and collaborative projects with wing communities in print and collage.
His recent collaborative work, Now & Then, continues his exploration of psychological archetypes, specifically investigating childhood memory through the practice of ventriloquism.
In May 2026 Kelland was Artist in Residence in the New Forest for Spudworks and the National Park Authority UK.
Jim Mitchell is Access and Learning Manager for the New Forest National Park Authority, a role which includes responsibility for engagement, education, health and wellbeing, access, archaeology, transport and volunteering. He is a Fellow and previous Chair of the Association for Heritage Interpretation. Jim will speak about how partnerships such as the Artist in Residence programme work to help people access and protect National Parks.
Wednesday 30 September | Doors Open 7pm, Talk starts 7.30pm | £6 in advance | Sway Village Hall SO41 6BB
St Barbe Heritage Talk — Wednesday 30 September
Doors 7pm | Talk 7.30pm
Speakers are our friends from SPUD with their curator Tom Hall, Jim Mitchell (NFPA) and Dean Kelland (resident artist) - our Forest, its stories, its people and its structures to inspire art
We all appreciate our Forest. It’s an amazing sensual place of views, textures and smells, but of course it is much more.
For the last four years, the New Forest National Park Authority and the SPUD team have used artists to deep dive into our Forest, its stories, its people and its structures. In this talk, SPUD will discuss their artist-in-residence programme with the New Forest National Park Authority, including insights from past and current artists ahead of the new residency exhibition opening in October at spudWORKS.
This is a unique opportunity to look beyond the trees and discover the rich visual language that past residents have uncovered, as well as to meet and question the current artist-in-residence and some of the people behind the scenes who help make the programme happen.
Speakers Bio
Tom Hall is currently curator at spudWORKS, helping build an interesting and relevant programme of exhibitions for Sway and its region. He is also an artist of 25 years and has shown work internationally in Europe and America.
Dean Kelland is a UK-based interdisciplinary artist whose practice incorporates performance, photography, print, collage and filmmaking. His work interrogates the intersections of taste, class, and social history, offering nuanced observations on the construction of collective and mediated identities. With an exhibition record that spans national and international venues, Kelland has held notable residencies at The New Art Gallery Walsall and the Birmingham & Midland Institute. From 2019 to 2023, he completed a landmark four-year residency at HMP Grendon, supported by Ikon Gallery and the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust. During this tenure, he established the first contemporary art gallery within an operational UK prison—an initiative that included a dedicated workshop space and collaborative projects with wing communities in print and collage.
His recent collaborative work, Now & Then, continues his exploration of psychological archetypes, specifically investigating childhood memory through the practice of ventriloquism.
In May 2026 Kelland was Artist in Residence in the New Forest for Spudworks and the National Park Authority UK.
Jim Mitchell is Access and Learning Manager for the New Forest National Park Authority, a role which includes responsibility for engagement, education, health and wellbeing, access, archaeology, transport and volunteering. He is a Fellow and previous Chair of the Association for Heritage Interpretation. Jim will speak about how partnerships such as the Artist in Residence programme work to help people access and protect National Parks.
Wednesday 30 September | Doors Open 7pm, Talk starts 7.30pm | £6 in advance | Sway Village Hall SO41 6BB
Event Details
Doors Open at 7:00PM
Starts at 7:30PM
Location
Sway Village Hall, Sway, SO41 6BBPrice
Ticket price
£6.00
