Grief Must Be Love with Nowhere to Go
Chris Alton & Emily Simpson
Bloc Projects, 71 Eyre Lane, Sheffield, S1 4RB
Open 22 March - 4 May 2024

Grief must be Love with Nowhere to Go is a collaboration between Chris Alton and Emily Simpson. Having each been through a significant loss in our mid-20s, we found the English vocabulary for communicating experiences of grief and bereavement to be lacking. We began to invite conversations about loss through facilitation and art making, in hopes of finding common ground. 

Over the past 6 months we’ve been holding spaces for people to come together and share their experiences of living with loss. We’ve held shared dinners; where people are invited to bring a dish associated with the person they’ve lost. We’ve spent afternoons sewing with others; making wearable patches that communicate our grief (loosely influenced by Victorian mourning customs). We’ve invited people to sit together and share music that reminds them of the person who’s died or their broader experience of grief. With each gathering, the activity has acted as a ‘softener’ for difficult conversations, where the acts of sharing food, sewing, or listening to music create a space that words are invited to fill.

Through a large textile installation, publication and seating made of reclaimed materials, the exhibition at Bloc Projects brings together some of these words, transforming the gallery space into an environment for reflection. Visitors can spend time within the space, where language becomes a shelter. The hope is that by going public with what living with loss looks like, we can better support each other collectively through the inevitable.

Press & Interviews:
Grief Must Be Love with Nowhere to Go: In Conversation with Emily Simpson and Chris Alton, Amelia Crouch, Corridor8
BBC Radio Sheffield, interviewed by Paulette Edwards,(interview starts at: 00:16:40)
BBC Radio Sheffield, interviewed by Paulette Edwards, (Interview starts at: 02:15:00)
Unique grief exhibition opens as part of Sheffield Life, Loss and Death Festival, Madeline Lake, ShefNews

Events Programme:
Access to Grief: Chris Alton, Emily Simpson, and Jhinuk Sarkar (online), 7:00-8:30pm, 18 April 2024
Grief Karaoke, Bloc Projects, 6:00-8:00pm, 4 May 2024

Dedicated to:
Douglas, Eleanor, Jane, Kathy, Margaret, Phil

Participants:
Cally, Chris, Clara, Hayley, Ian, Jeff, Josh, Maggie, Melanie, Or, Robin, Ruth, Sue, Sue, Sunshine, Tony, Wing

With thanks to:
Sunshine Wong, Co-Director (Programme), Bloc Projects
Zoë Sawyer, Co-Director (Organisational), Bloc Projects
David Gilbert, Director, Bloc Projects (2021-23)
Jhinuk Sarkar, Accessibility Consultant
Joshua Hart, Art Psychotherapist
Will Marshall, Technician (Exhibition) & Fabricator (Furniture)
George Gibson, Printing & Binding (Publication)
Harry Meadley, Photographer (Exhibition)

Additional thanks to:
Compassionate Sheffield
Or Tshuva, Director, 422 Arts
Izzy Langhamer, Project Support Assistant, Bloc Projects

Commissioned by:
Bloc Projects

Funded by:
Bloc Projects
Arts Council England