Meet the pair united by grief
When artists Chris Alton and Emily Simpson both lost parents suddenly in their mid-20s, their grief was raw, messy, complex and unfixable.
But there was one thing they eventually found an element of comfort in – getting to know one another.
The pair were both bereaved in January 2016 and found common ground and a bedrock of support when they met at an exhibition in November of the same year.
Chris, who studied Fine Art at Middlesex University and has been exhibiting for more than 10 years, said: “Neither of us were really speaking about it at the time, so we bonded over the shared experience and the relief of knowing someone who was going through something very similar.”
Emily, an artist from Salford with a focus on textiles, added: “It was really transformative for us both to find someone we could open up to about our experience. Meeting Chris was such a huge comfort, at a time when the world didn’t feel comfortable to me at all.”
Through their connection, Chris and Emily learnt the simple but powerful truth that people process grief better together.
Those themes also found a way into their artistic practices and several years later the pair were inspired to collaborate – continuing to explore how loss is experienced in a world where grief can still sometimes feel a taboo subject.
“The collaboration just grew naturally off the back of that first connection,” said Emily. “All of those conversations we shared about our grief, and the support we gave each other.”
A decade on from their loss, Chris and Emily’s latest project continues in that spirit – bringing them to Warrington Museum and Art Gallery with Grief Must Be Love With Nowhere To Go.
The exhibition opens on Saturday, 14 February, and specifically looks at the use of language around death and bereavement.
Chris and Emily found the English vocabulary for communicating experiences of mourning to be lacking.
So they began to invite conversations about loss through workshops and art making in the hope of finding common ground.
Through a large textile installation, the exhibition will bring together some of the words and phrases they encountered.
Emily said: “While all of these workshops have been emotional experiences – for ourselves as facilitators and the people who join us – I’ve always left feeling really affirmed, held and uplifted.
“It’s really important to be able to talk openly about your experience, and find ways to share that with others, and we need language and spaces to do that in.”
Chris added: “Hearing from others shifted and broadened my perspective and helped me to feel less isolated.
“Hopefully it did the same for the others who’ve been involved in the process or encountered our work in other ways such as at exhibitions or in publications.”
Visitors are invited to spend time within the space, where language becomes a ‘shelter’ and the exhibition becomes a safe, supportive place to ‘bare feelings and be vulnerable’.
Chris said: “It’s a huge responsibility and one that we take very seriously in terms of how we set expectations and communicate about the artworks.
“We’ve both undertaken counselling skills courses, safeguarding training, and mental health first aid certifications.
“We’ve also worked with mental health professionals, art psychotherapists, and access consultants. All of these things feed into our ability to hold space for grief in a way that is supportive and sensitive.”
Emily added: “There’s definitely been times in the past where I’ve ran away from my own grief, not been ready or willing to look at it.
“Grief is an experience that can be so difficult to articulate, or to hold within the body, and our experience of it changes from day to day, year to year. This complicated nature of grief is held within the exhibition title.
“Grief is so many things. Pain, tenderness, anger, love – all these contradictory emotions.
“Although I’d like to see an environment where people feel like they’ve more permission to talk about their grief, it’s also really important to acknowledge that some days we just ‘can’t look at it’, and that’s ok.
“I hope audiences engage with the work and space we’ve created in the way they feel able.”
Grief Must Be Love With Nowhere To Go opens at Warrington Museum on Saturday, 14 February, and is free to view. The exhibition continues until 19 April.