I am thrilled to have at least been longlisted for the 2025 Artangel Open, one of the most prestigious and ambitious public art commissions in the world. My proposal was inspired by the outdoor pulpit that is part of St Luke’s church in Plymouth (part of the The Box museum and art gallery) which I saw for the first time while visiting my friend the artist George Shaw’s exhibition there in 2022, and which reminded me of similar but disused or semi-derelict outdoor pulpits that I know of in London and elsewhere.

Here’s the Artangel info and judging panel:

The 2025 Artangel Open invited artists based anywhere in the world to submit ambitious ideas. We received over 1,000 submissions from 80 countries, conveying the breadth of what artists are thinking about across the world. The panel for the 2025 Open included artist Zineb Sedira; musician, producer and composer Nitin Sawhney CBE; Artistic Director and co-Chief Executive of Dance Umbrella Freddie Opoku-Addaie; previously-commissioned Artangel Open artist Andrea Luka Zimmerman; and director of Artangel Mariam Zulfiqar. Read more about each of the panelists at the bottom of this page.

As well as today publishing the shortlist for this incredible opportunity, Artangel have published the full longlist, together with summaries of everyone’s proposals. I’m really delighted to be part of such a strong cohort of people and projects.

Here’s mine:

If it is of interest, here (with two minor updates) is my application.

Summarise your idea. *

Your response to this question can be up to 350 characters long, which is approximately 100 words.

Discovering Britain’s disused outdoor pulpits and bringing them back to life (with local partners and a national campaign) for a country-wide programme of local outdoor spoken-word events, developing writers networks, local history and opportunities via an overlooked outdoor performance infrastructure that is hiding in plain sight.

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More about your proposal *

Your response to this question can be up to 1500 characters long, which is approximately 400 words.

Inspired by an open-air pulpit at St Luke’s church, Plymouth (seen while visiting George Shaw exhibition, 2022), I have identified an unmapped network of disused open-air pulpits around the UK. These could become sites for new kinds of public spoken word events involving local writers groups and literary organisations. I have so far identified fourteen open-air pulpits mainly on church sites. These include, in London: Holy trinity church, Marylebone Road; St James’s, Piccadilly; St Augustine’s, South Kensington; Christchurch, Brixton; St Paul’s Cathedral. In the SE: St. George Church, Brentwood, Essex; St John’s Church, Reading; St Nicholas Church, Cranleigh. In the SW: St Lukes, Plymouth. In the Midlands: St. Martin’s, Birmingham; the old Pulpit, Cathedral Church of St Michael Coventry; the ‘Refectory Pulpit’ Shrewsbury Abbey; Cucklet Delf, Eyam. In the North: St Stephen’s, Tockholes, Lancs. Wales: St Tudno’s, Great Orme; the Pulpit Yew, Nantglyn. In Scotland: the Pulpit Rock, Ardlui, Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. This is important to me because I have been performing spoken-word prose works since the late 1980s. Reading my prose to live audiences was my path to getting published and becoming a novelist, and may be for others. This would entail R&D/location work, site-visits, media campaigns, work with site-owners, libraries, literature-development organisations, museums, local history groups etc.to re-animate these historic sites for new spoken word events.0/1500

More about your background *

Your response to this question can be up to 1500 characters long, which is approximately 400 words.

I’m the author of novels incl. The Fountain in the Forest (Faber and Faber, 2018), and Foxy-T (Faber and Faber, 2003). My next novel Phantom at the Feast is out in [June 2026]. I’m currently the RLF Fellow at Royal Holloway University of London. I am editor/publisher of the artists’ book series Piece of Paper Press, founded in 1994, recently exhibited at Matt’s Gallery, London. I present the occasional radio programme Literature Live on Resonance FM. I’ve delivered major projects for the Science Museum’s Atmosphere Commission 2013, with Blast Theory for Channel 4, and Situations in Bristol & have professional contacts in libraries, festivals, NPOs uk-wide. My 2012 novella Dicky Star and the Garden Rule, was published by Forma alongside a touring exhibition by Jane and Louise Wilson for the Chernobyl 25th anniversary. I worked for Arts Council England 1997–2007, & chaired the board of London arts radio station Resonance 104.4fm 2010–2018. I’ve been writer in residence at the Science Museum, UCL, and the city of Split, Croatia among others, and am associate lecturer on the Creative Writing MA at Birkbeck. I’ve performed spoken word since the late ’80s and given hundreds of readings from my novels and short stories in bookshops, libraries, literature and music festivals including Glastonbury, museums, galleries, pubs and nightclubs all over the UK and internationally. These skills can be shared, & make me confident we could deliver a great large-scale local project.

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