Biography

David Shearing is a multi award-winning artist who creates immersive multimedia environments and spaces. He is interested in how audiences engage both physically and conceptually with design and installation art. He explores audience engagement by creating intimate, and at times spectacular, art and performance installations using video, sound and organic materials. David’s work operates as a hybrid between fine art and performance practice.

Recent work includes, Black Rock (2018), exploring the translation of mountain climbing into performance,  Incredible Things (2017) www.incredible-things.com, a city wide participation project and artistic manifesto – nominated for Leeds art project of the year. The Weather Café (2016) www.theweathercafe.co.uk a weather responsive café in the heart of the city of Leeds. The Dock (2016-2018) a Lowry Commission and event space for the Week 53 Festival in Salford. In 2014 David was award a Sky Academy Arts Scholarship and produced The Weather Machine (2015) in partnership with West Yorkshire Playhouse and stage@leeds which was awarded Silver at the World Stage Design exhibition 2017. In 2013 ‘and it all comes down to this…’ won the Gold award at World Stage Design for best Installation design. David has a PhD in ‘Audience Immersion and the Experience of Scenography.

Black Rock was a multimedia performance that explored the extraordinary desire of humans to move through mountains, to scale vertical walls and to seek new physical and intellectual heights.

The project built from two of Johnny Dawes’ first ascents in Snowdonia, to wider concepts of risk, vertigo, adventure, partnership and the physical boundaries between body and rock. Black Rock traced the meanings of mountains, a narrative, collaged and momentary. The project was devised during site surveys to North Wales and drew on sound and video gathered during these visits. It demonstrate the creative process of translating experience into performance through design.

“THE PURPOSE WAS TO USE PERFORMANCE PRACTICE AS A METHOD TO REVEAL THE SUBJECTIVE AND SHARED ASPECTS OF THE MOUNTAIN CLIMBING EXPERIENCE; TO DISCOVER THE WAYS IN WHICH PERFORMANCE DESIGN, THE BODY AND STORYTELLING MIGHT CAPTURE, TRANSLATE OR REPRESENT THIS COMPLEX EMBODIED PURSUIT. ”