All at Sea (2017)
Depicting the artists attempts to relate to a lighthouse, a historical object/building, on a human level. The work indirectly explores genealogy, as well as anatomy, cartography, and being hopelessly lost- separated from historical events and individuals.
The project began with a residency at the UK’s most northerly lighthouse on North Ronaldsay, that might have been built by the artists ancestors.
Documentation from the first residency in 2017.
Exhibition trailer sample from Odyssean: Topographies, 2018 at Hestercombe, UK.
...Stevenson's 'All At Sea' (2017) uses storytelling to address the notion of not-belonging. Here, he reflects on his genealogy as a 'Stevenson' and assumes the identity of a lighthouse keeper. Frustrated by his distance from 'lost' ancestry, he maps out a fictional journey across an archipelago and transforms himself, both physically and psychologically, into the very object that determines his voyage – a lighthouse. Painted, head to toe, and sporting a crown of headtorches, the artist casts off in a human-sized buoy in search of another narrative, albeit remaining incased in his own, personal perception of the world.
All at Sea, in Odyssean: Topographies, review by Selina Oakes, 2018.
Installation at Hestercombe Gallery in 2018.