In the studio with… Fran Cottell

How long have you been at APT?

Since 2006

Describe APT in three words...

Community, Spacious, Swans

What is your practice and how do you like to work in your studio? 

I make work (Installations and Performances) for specific situations. My studio is my project planning office/archive. The area outside my studio/Apt is sometimes used for construction/testing our projects. I have incorporated the natural/built features of the location into artworks/performances e.g. the Creek, the Cherry Tree and the DLR.

My current projects are: BARKING for postROOM (July) and The Line for the b-side Festival in September with Marianne Mueller.

BARKING reverses the approach I have been taking with installations in my house since 2001 (see 'Fran Cottell:The House Projects' 2021 KTPress) where interventions: platforms/tunnel have created new space and framed disorder/everyday life; with Trees effectively growing through the different floors of the ordered house/gallery. The Line maps the route of a lost historic foot path to medieval windmills across a quarry on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, re-imagining it as bridge.

Which artists have influenced you?

I think when you have been practising for a long times you are not consciously influenced by other artists. Some works I like would include Ayse Erkmen's On Water for Munster Sculpture Project 2017, Erwin Wurm's One Minute Sculptures 1997- on -going and Alexandra Pirici and Manuel Pelmus's An Immaterial Retrospective of the Venice Biennale, the Romanian Pavillion 2013.


What is the most unusual thing someone might find in your studio?

A section of a car that I used for a project at M2 gallery 2006.

Scroll down for details of Fran’s work currently on show.