Kelly Bryant’s immersive art reimagines Devonport’s stories and inspires new generations at Arts University Plymouth

<p>Following acclaimed presentations in <strong>Plymouth, Chicago </strong>and<strong> Turin</strong>, Kelly’s practice exemplifies the powerful potential of immersive media to tell complex, human-centred stories. From transforming Devonport’s Market Hall into a garment of light for <strong>Dazzle Festival</strong>, to co-authoring the evolving sculptural installation <em>Altered Realities</em> at <strong><a href="https://www.greenhillarts.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Green Hill Arts</a></strong>, Kelly’s work offers poetic interventions into public space, memory, and material.</p>

<p dir="ltr">Kelly's projection piece <em>A Thread Through History</em>, commissioned by <strong>Real Ideas</strong> for the 2025 Dazzle Festival, drew deeply on feminist histories and narratives of invisible labour. Using archival letters, glitch aesthetics and textile gestures, Kelly honoured the seamstresses of 19th-century Devonport, women whose skilled labour often went unrecognised but was essential to the economy and culture of naval Britain.</p> <p dir="ltr">Working closely with Fab Lab South West technical demonstrator <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/people/matt-holmes" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Matt Holmes</a>, Kelly developed a bespoke scanning process that introduced fabric into the 3D capture of architectural forms. “We really didn’t know if it was going to work,” she said. “But it did, far better than we anticipated. The building became a fabric from its own data and DNA.” Her use of “incorrect” scanning techniques, embracing failure and distortion, added a rich visual glitch aesthetic that reflected the fragility and layering of historical memory.<br /></p>

<p dir="ltr">This became the emotional and conceptual core of the project. Working with <strong><a href="https://www.theboxplymouth.com/collections/moving-image" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Box’s Media Archive</a></strong> and heritage sites like <strong><a href="https://www.coldharbourmill.org.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Coldharbour Mill</a></strong>, Kelly wove a layered visual and sonic tapestry. Letters written by naval wives to their husbands at sea are read aloud in the soundscape, alongside a haunting filmed sequence that shows a lone woman dragging an anchor along a beach, creating a potent image of care, waiting, resilience, and the unseen emotional weight carried by the women of the time.</p> <p dir="ltr">Technically experimental but emotionally resonant, the project reflects traditions of feminist moving image practice and tactile media, recalling internationally significant artists such as Mona Hatoum and Susan Hiller in its interplay of narrative, embodiment and public memory.<br /></p>

<p dir="ltr">Kelly’s most recent exhibition, <em>Altered Realities</em>, opened in spring 2025 at <strong>Green Hill Arts</strong> in Moretonhampstead. A sculptural light installation made in collaboration with artist <strong>Tony Weaver</strong>, the project explored co-authorship, site-responsiveness, and shared space.</p> <p dir="ltr">Visitors were invited to witness the evolving installation in three stages, from collaborative development to immersive projections and sculptural documentation. “The projections are like a narrative skin that runs over and through the objects,” Kelly explains, “becoming a membrane for communication and transformation.”<br /></p>

<p dir="ltr">The installation revisited earlier themes of embodied memory and material storytelling. Whereas <em>A Thread Through History</em> focused on the hidden labour of naval wives, <em>Altered Realities</em> extended that interest into relational authorship and spatial transformation.</p> <p>Her films, recently screened at the <strong>2024 Torino Underground Cinefest</strong> and the <strong>2025 Blow-Up International Arthouse Film Festival</strong> in Chicago, added a global dimension to this locally-rooted collaboration. This echoed Kelly’s earlier projection work at the Paignton Picture House, where architecture and memory were interwoven in similarly evocative ways.</p>

<p dir="ltr">Although Kelly developed aspects of her installation using the digital technologies available at <strong>Arts University Plymouth’s <a href="https://fablabsouthwest.org.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Fab Lab South West</a></strong>, her focus remained on narrative and historical embodiment, a synergy between aesthetics and place that appears throughout the university’s postgraduate curriculum.</p> <p dir="ltr">Ben Mundy, Fab Lab Manager at Arts University Plymouth, praised Kelly’s experimental approach. “Kelly’s project exemplifies the kinds of unexpected outcomes that happen when artists embrace the poetic potential of creative technology,” he said. “She used the tools in surprising, sensitive ways. This is exactly the kind of work the Fab Lab exists to support.”<br /></p>

<p dir="ltr"><strong><a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/ma-immersive-media">MA Immersive Media</a></strong> at Arts University Plymouth is designed for artists, technologists and creative thinkers ready to pioneer new experiences in virtual, augmented and mixed reality. Taught by leading practitioners and supported by specialist facilities including <strong>Europe’s largest immersive dome</strong>, this postgraduate course invites you to experiment across disciplines and to create work that is sensory, spatial and socially engaged.</p> <p dir="ltr">From projection mapping and interactive installation to sound design and extended reality, you’ll develop a professional practice that is grounded in making and future-focused in ambition.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong><a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/ma-immersive-media">Click here to explore our MA Immersive Media course</a></strong><br /></p>