About
I am an artist and writer working with video, sculpture, printmaking and performance to explore our relationship with other animals. This has included serenading a spider, making a diamond from the dead creatures of the River Thames and embracing a giant green sea anemone. My illustrated book Gossamer Days: Spiders, Humans and Their Threads (Strange Attractor/MIT press, 2016) examines the history of the human uses of spider silk, from gun sights to sticky tunics via acoustic lures and royal underwear. It was chosen by The Guardian as one of their favourite books of the year.
I was the child who loved to stroke slugs, and I continue to bring this sticky interest to the world around me. After moving through twelve studios over the past twenty years, I now work from my converted garage in the East Midlands, where I can spend time looking under logs in the garden and watching the silverfish in the downstairs toilet. I keep a wasp’s nest on the windowsill beside me, next to a framed letter from David Attenborough and a beautiful poem about Marlene Dumas written by my friend Miranda Peake.
El Morgan (London, 1978). Recent exhibitions: Sampler (Performance, Raven Row, 2024);Have you had a productive day? (Commission, The Serpentine Gallery, 2023) Naissance (Group exhibition, Unit Gallery, London, 2023); Tale of the Frozen Bits (Solo, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, 2023); le Mostra della Laguna (Group exhibition, Sale Docks, Venice, 2021); 100 ways to say we (Group exhibition, Venice Architecture Biennale, 2021).
I was the child who loved to stroke slugs, and I continue to bring this sticky interest to the world around me. After moving through twelve studios over the past twenty years, I now work from my converted garage in the East Midlands, where I can spend time looking under logs in the garden and watching the silverfish in the downstairs toilet. I keep a wasp’s nest on the windowsill beside me, next to a framed letter from David Attenborough and a beautiful poem about Marlene Dumas written by my friend Miranda Peake.
El Morgan (London, 1978). Recent exhibitions: Sampler (Performance, Raven Row, 2024);Have you had a productive day? (Commission, The Serpentine Gallery, 2023) Naissance (Group exhibition, Unit Gallery, London, 2023); Tale of the Frozen Bits (Solo, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, 2023); le Mostra della Laguna (Group exhibition, Sale Docks, Venice, 2021); 100 ways to say we (Group exhibition, Venice Architecture Biennale, 2021).
Contact
You are very welcome to get in touch with me through email (emorganweb [at] gmail.com) or instagram. I also have more videos to view on my vimeo site.
👋️ Subscribe to Moments of Pleasure and recieve a new video and writing on creatures (human and nonhuman). There will be many legs, some stickiness, occasional cannibalism and a bit of gentle stroking.
You are very welcome to get in touch with me through email (emorganweb [at] gmail.com) or instagram. I also have more videos to view on my vimeo site.
👋️ Subscribe to Moments of Pleasure and recieve a new video and writing on creatures (human and nonhuman). There will be many legs, some stickiness, occasional cannibalism and a bit of gentle stroking.