March for Optimism, Winchester High Street, 2014 [photo credit: Katie Doyle]

Having spent the best part of a year making woodcut prints with ambiguously utopian or optimistic slogans, I decided to take them out into the public square as placards. With the help of friends, family and members of the public – and the assistance of the local authorities and constabulary – I directed a ‘March For Optimism’ through Winchester. The March presented the idea of optimism and its continued existence despite the many reasons to be pessimistic (even more now than in 2014).  The video of the March, the banners and placards formed part of my Graduate Platform show at Aspex Gallery, Porstmouth later that year. I led a similar march in Andover in 2015, as part of the Arts Council-funded Bureau of Exchange, with colleagues from Chapel Arts Andover.