Salon 008
27th October 2026
SPEAKERS:
Click on name or photo to be taken to the speaker’s website.
Charlie Murphy
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Charlie uses performance, sculpture, photography and video to explore questions about our bodies, health and relationships. Her projects often involve some form of collaboration or participation.
For the last ten years she’s been working with neuroscientists who use powerful bioengineering tools to grow human brains cells ‘in a dish’.
These technologies are being applied across many areas of scientific research - from trying to understand the causes of dementia, investigating how cells might be used as a form of ‘biological computing’, to engineering new hybrid forms of life.
Observing the astonishing processes involved in transforming a lump of her own skin into functioning braincells, Charlie is trying to make sense of the profound existential and ethical questions that these engineering tools raise - and how to respond as an artist and human being.
Charlie uses performance, sculpture, photography and video to explore questions about our bodies, health and relationships. Her projects often involve some form of collaboration or participation.
For the last ten years she’s been working with neuroscientists who use powerful bioengineering tools to grow human brains cells ‘in a dish’.
These technologies are being applied across many areas of scientific research - from trying to understand the causes of dementia, investigating how cells might be used as a form of ‘biological computing’, to engineering new hybrid forms of life.
Observing the astonishing processes involved in transforming a lump of her own skin into functioning braincells, Charlie is trying to make sense of the profound existential and ethical questions that these engineering tools raise - and how to respond as an artist and human being.
Eileen Morley
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I am an artist and a knitter, neither one first nor second. About five years ago I started to get into this trouble of loving both knitting and making art, and needing to do both. At that time I would have spoken about those doubts, but now I feel a better harmony in my practice. I see that our lives are full of things and textiles, and I take found objects as the subject of larger knit works that honor and elevate the mundane. Each work is a conversation between the found object and the stitches of knitting.
I am doubtful that I even have anything worth speaking about at the Salon, but that is what is so encouraging about the event! I am at several crossroads in my life, but the biggest doubt I would like to voice is that of “knitting machine vs hand knitting.” I have always been a hand-knitter, but taking on production work this past year or so has caused machine knitting to worm its way into my brain. I have experienced what feels like my brain chemistry changing, which is exciting and interesting, but as with all things I have doubts… Is one actually better than the other–and can I still love both equally? I will expand during the Salon."
Eileen is a member of the current AWG Creative Connections scheme.
I am an artist and a knitter, neither one first nor second. About five years ago I started to get into this trouble of loving both knitting and making art, and needing to do both. At that time I would have spoken about those doubts, but now I feel a better harmony in my practice. I see that our lives are full of things and textiles, and I take found objects as the subject of larger knit works that honor and elevate the mundane. Each work is a conversation between the found object and the stitches of knitting.
I am doubtful that I even have anything worth speaking about at the Salon, but that is what is so encouraging about the event! I am at several crossroads in my life, but the biggest doubt I would like to voice is that of “knitting machine vs hand knitting.” I have always been a hand-knitter, but taking on production work this past year or so has caused machine knitting to worm its way into my brain. I have experienced what feels like my brain chemistry changing, which is exciting and interesting, but as with all things I have doubts… Is one actually better than the other–and can I still love both equally? I will expand during the Salon."
Eileen is a member of the current AWG Creative Connections scheme.
Prue Cooper
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Before I was a potter I was a dealer in drawings. Most of the other dealers I knew were scrupulously honest - but a few were not, and I’m sorry to say that their duplicities are much more fun to hear about, while also casting a light on the dangers of certainty, and the occasional slipperiness of truth.
Prue is a Brother of the Art Workers Guild
Before I was a potter I was a dealer in drawings. Most of the other dealers I knew were scrupulously honest - but a few were not, and I’m sorry to say that their duplicities are much more fun to hear about, while also casting a light on the dangers of certainty, and the occasional slipperiness of truth.
Prue is a Brother of the Art Workers Guild
Ugonna Hosten
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Ugonna Hosten (b.1982 Lagos, Nigeria) lives and works in Kent,UK.
She is a multi-disciplinary artist working across media encompassing collage, drawing, assemblage and printmaking.
With a particular interest in the nature of the Self; Ugonna Hosten’s work pulls from vast fields; including philosophy, mythology, depth psychology, alchemy and the ancient spiritual traditions of the Igbos.
Since her debut solo exhibition in 2022, Ugonna has continued to explore and develop a mythical tale of a female protagonist on a pilgrimage guided by a divine entity.
She cites her work as “a process of broadening and deepening a felt sense of the transpersonal dimension, a journeying towards a horizon of self discovery and becoming.”
Ugonna Hosten (b.1982 Lagos, Nigeria) lives and works in Kent,UK.
She is a multi-disciplinary artist working across media encompassing collage, drawing, assemblage and printmaking.
With a particular interest in the nature of the Self; Ugonna Hosten’s work pulls from vast fields; including philosophy, mythology, depth psychology, alchemy and the ancient spiritual traditions of the Igbos.
Since her debut solo exhibition in 2022, Ugonna has continued to explore and develop a mythical tale of a female protagonist on a pilgrimage guided by a divine entity.
She cites her work as “a process of broadening and deepening a felt sense of the transpersonal dimension, a journeying towards a horizon of self discovery and becoming.”
Richard Chartres
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Lord Chartres read history at Cambridge and taught Ancient History before being ordained in 1973. He was Bishop of London for 22 years and is now an active crossbencher in the House of Lords.
His lifelong fascination with the past, including the classical world, has continued to inform his work across heritage, faith and public life.
He will be speaking on the virtues of doubt.
Lord Chartres read history at Cambridge and taught Ancient History before being ordained in 1973. He was Bishop of London for 22 years and is now an active crossbencher in the House of Lords.
His lifelong fascination with the past, including the classical world, has continued to inform his work across heritage, faith and public life.
He will be speaking on the virtues of doubt.
Philip Gaches
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Philip took over the family plastering business following the sudden death of his father in 1987. Though he works with plaster across a broad spectrum of historic buildings, from all periods, his favourite would be Elizabethan, especially the free hand nature of work from this time when all the skill, including design and drawing, was in the hand of the plasterer. Relying on rudimentary tools, the Elizabethan plasterers created the most glorious plaster ceilings, lots of which are still with us today. Working with Philip today are both his sons William and Jude.
He is a brother of the Art Workers’ Guild.
“I’m a member of the cult of risk rather than certainty. “
Philip took over the family plastering business following the sudden death of his father in 1987. Though he works with plaster across a broad spectrum of historic buildings, from all periods, his favourite would be Elizabethan, especially the free hand nature of work from this time when all the skill, including design and drawing, was in the hand of the plasterer. Relying on rudimentary tools, the Elizabethan plasterers created the most glorious plaster ceilings, lots of which are still with us today. Working with Philip today are both his sons William and Jude.
He is a brother of the Art Workers’ Guild.
“I’m a member of the cult of risk rather than certainty. “
Katie Smith
Katie Smith is a ceramic artist based in South London whose practice centres on the creation of hand-built vessel forms. Using a research-through-practice approach, she creates organic, sculptural ceramics that investigate materiality, tactility, and the relationship between process and form. Inspired by folk crafts, ancient ceramics, maximalist aesthetics, and natural structures, her work exists between functional object and sculpture.
Katie is a member of the current AWG Creative Connections scheme.
Harriet Vine
Harriet Vine MBE is an Artist, Creative Director and Co-founder of Tatty Devine. Her work has spanned more than 2 decades, continuously pushing the boundaries of materials, especially acrylic and the ideas behind what jewellery can be. In 2013, she was awarded an MBE for services to the fashion industry and has collaborated with Artists and creative institutions around the globe.
