Artists Make Space – Donna Enticknap photographs time in the woods

Artists Make Space launched in June 2024, offering spaces for free for Richmond artists to develop their practice. 

Donna Enticknap is completing a residency in the grounds at Orleans House Gallery and writes about her practice and residency with us. 

I am a multi-disciplinary artist based in Twickenham. My work is an exploration of our connections to place and time and how we collect and recall memories, woven through themes of mental health, nostalgia and personal identity. I work primarily with alternative photographic processes, as well as sound and moving image, using analogue and digital technology alongside each other to play with the idea of generation loss and the fallibility of human memory. For the last several weeks I have been working out here in the woodlands at Orleans House Gallery, using a pinhole camera to create a series of slow self-portraits that explore our relationship with time and the experience of being alone in nature. 

A pinhole camera is basically nothing more than a light-tight box with a tiny hole that projects an image onto light-reactive paper. The one I use allows me to develop the photographs within the body of the camera itself, which means I can produce a finished image that is processed right there in the woods in the same spot it was taken, creating an artefact rooted to time and place. 

Due to the nature of pinhole photography, exposure times are much longer than a typical photograph, sometimes they can be up to an hour, or maybe two, depending on the light. This creates a bit of a challenge for self-portraiture, as I have to remain as still as possible for that time, so each photograph becomes almost a performance. I have set myself rules – I can’t cheat to pass the time, so no listening to music or looking at my phone, I just have to be still and look at the trees and wait. Despite my stillness, in the finished photo I still am often a blur. Sometimes the photo doesn’t work out at all, and I have to consider whether or not I will stand there and do it all again. 

Alongside the photographs, I am also recording moving image on film and video and making field recordings, to capture time from all angles, each one another perspective, another experience. 

Connection to place is very important in my practice, and I am particularly attached to the woodland here at Orleans House Gallery. I have been walking these woods for the seven years that I have lived nearby. When I moved here from the country it was very important for me to seek out all the green spaces here that I could, and these woods are a favourite. I am very grateful to the Artists Make Space program for giving me the time and space to explore this project in this place. 

Donna and other Artists Make Space artists are making the most of our site to push their practices and create new work.. You can see more about Artists Make Space on the Orleans House Gallery social channels. Find out more about Donna: Follow Donna on Instagram and visit Donna’s website.