Festival 31 Artist in Residence: Claire Weetman

 Festival 31 2025 Artist in Residence: Claire Weetman 

Claire Weetman is an artist who makes drawings, prints, installations, and public interventions that visualise how we navigate through spaces, connect with others, and observe the traces of things that are difficult to see.

Since 2005 Claire has developed projects where she lives in St Helens, including co-founding Platform Studios in 2012 that has led to her supporting and advocating for other artists practices in programmes such as Reside*; developing projects since 2016 with people from global communities; and working with local organisations to create works that add a new layer of space where people can connect with each other. This work manifests as objects (Many Uses of a Blanket), performances (What are you waiting for?) or documents (Walking Together/Walking Apart).

For this year's Festival31 Artist in Residence programme, Claire is collaborating with Artist Kirushan Sivagnanam.  You can find out more about his work on our blog post and more about the residency programme on our website. 

We asked Claire for her thoughts about taking part in this year's Artists in Residency programme: 

"I worked with SOLA arts in 2018 as part of a project where I developed relationships and ways of creating artwork with people with experience of displacement, so it's wonderful to be back working alongside them for Festival31 in 2025, exploring new ways to collaborate as artists and share important experiences as people who live in the Liverpool City Region."

We're really looking forward to seeing what Claire and Kirushan make in their collaboration.  Below are some examples of Claire's previous artworks. You can also visit her website to see more of her work.

'What Are You Waiting For' Film, Performed in 2018

'Priviledge Held Down', Monotype on tracing paper 2017

Walking together/Walking apart A project by Claire Weetman, with women and their families from Refugee Women Connect in St Helens. January 2020 - February 2021 

'The Giants Blanket' - Storytelling Performance 2024 onwards

 'Finding solitude: Pilgrimage to the bins', Pencil and ink on bristol paper, A3, 2023