Gateway Services Adviser
Jake Wood works in Gateway Services in the library and Student Services department at UCA Canterbury, providing first line help for students in gaining access to specialist support services as well as locating and using library resources, facilities, equipment, and technology.
Bio
Along side working at UCA Jake is a practicing artist. Jake’s works spans performance, sculpture, installation, collage, and photography. Drawing on a culture that is concerned with de-bunking the ideas of fitness, work and exercise, he explores this by integrating his own use of the gym and physicality into his performances using tongue-in-cheek humour and slapstick comical gestures. He enjoys the unapologetic attitude and approach that performative work offers – turning up to a place with his homemade props, doing what he needs to do, and then exiting again. Jake considers his practice inherently intrusive, invading different kinds of spaces and environments, the general public becoming unwitting participants captured on video.
Alongside his practice, Jake also works freelance for digital arts organization Electric Medway as a Creative Technologist, helping to assist their vision to foster a sense of community in Chatham and the wider Medway area, giving locals access to digital technology, art, and a vehicle to share stories.
Website:
www.jakewoodartist.co.uk
Electric Medway’s Website:
www.electricmedway.org
Electric Medway - Where everyone is a digital storyteller.
Research statement
Jake’s recent research has been exploring the intersections between bodybuilding and queerness through the artist being a ‘gay bodybuilder’. Through these two paths, he has integrated this into his wider practice and seeks to make audiences aware of queer spaces that exist. It’s not just about ‘queer spaces’ but actually queering spaces.
Jake is currently involved in a research project called Jarman Now, founded by Dr. Elisa Oliver, Peter Fillingham and Dr. Jonathan Whitehall. The project explores the president nature of Jarmans work in relation to gender politics, ecology, and ideas of English identity. It is a collaborative project working with friends and colleagues of Jarman, in addition to hearing different generations of artists Jarman influenced.
Jake’s research on Jarman explores the process of ‘queering space’ itself and the nature Jarman’s prospect cottage as an intervention in the Dungeness landscape and the informality that creates. Furthermore, exploring Jarman’s relationship to the male body.
Into that World, Inverted Podcast:
Episode 5: Prospect Cottage on Apple Podcasts
- The Birth of Beefcakes, QUEERCALL Festival, Commissioned Performance, Folkestone, (2023)
- Prospect Cottage Research & Development Residency Award, Creative Folkestone, Kent, (2023)
- #ClayGains! Commissioned Performance for AirSpace Gallery, British Ceramics Biennale, Stoke-On-Trent, (2023)
- The Artist is the Athlete, Commissioned Performance for Electric Medway Digital Arts Festival, Chatham, (2023)
- ClubUrania Residency Award, Cambridge Junction, Cambridge, 2022
- ‘A Sea Change’ Commissioned Performance for Art in Romney Marsh Festival, Ivy Church, Romney Marsh, Kent (2022)
- Muscle Mary Meets River Medway, Commissioned Performance for Electric Medway Digital Arts Festival, Chatham, (2022)
- Reignite Artist Bursary, Home Live Art, Kent, (2022)
- @ Disturbance Residency and Development Programme, Ugly Duck, London (2021)
- UCA x CRATE GRAD Award Residency, CRATE Studio & Project Space, Margate, (2021)
- Nominated for UAL Origins Award, London, (2018)