In Conversation: Leah Clements & Jenn Ashworth

Join artist Leah Clements and writer Jenn Ashworth, who will be discussing Clements’ new film Apophenia.  

The film, inspired by Ashworth’s publication Notes Made While Falling, centres the voice of Ashworth in exploring her experience of apophenia, a psychological state that is characterised by seeing patterns and connections where there may be none in unrelated subjects and objects.  

Leah and Jenn will use Apophenia as a starting point to talk about the complex, uncertain, physical, and psychological process of finding meaning in the experience of illness and disability that they and other crips have ('crip' is a political reclaiming by some disability activists of the derogatory label ‘cripple’).  

Showing at Exchange Place from 18 June – 1 Aug, Apophenia is a new co-commission and the first major solo exhibition in the UK by London-based artist Leah Clements, produced by Arts Catalyst, Sheffield and Peer Gallery, London. 

Please note, we will be making an audio recording of this conversation.  

Content warning: the conversation may include challenging or sensitive topics including mental health, psychosis, disability, and birth trauma.  

This event is part of Arts Catalyst’s public programme connected to Apophenia, an exhibition by artist Leah Clements. For more information about Apophenia visit Arts Catalyst’s website 

Leah Clements works primarily in moving image, photography and sculpture, to embody moments of transcendence. Her work is concerned with the relationship between psychological, emotional, and physical states, often through personal accounts of unusual or hard-to-articulate experiences. Her practice also focuses on sickness/cripness/disability in art, and how real and imaginary realms can operate as radical spaces to address collective experiences. 

Jenn Ashworth is an English writer whose novels include A Kind of Intimacy, The Friday Gospels, and Fell. Notes Made While Falling, an experimental memoir and a critical exploration of traumatised and sickened selves in fiction and film, is a series of essays that inspired the new film Apophenia by visual Artist Leah Clements. In 2018 Ashworth was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in its 40 Under 40 initiative and is currently a Professor of Writing at Lancaster University. 

Access Information   

Doors open at 5.45pm. The event will start at 6pm and finish by 7pm. Please enter through the doors on Arundel Gate, opposite Sheffield Hallam University. The entrance from the Winter Gardens is closed after hours. 

There is unreserved seating. Please get in touch via events@sheffieldmuseums.org.uk if you require a specific space reserved, such as a wheelchair space. 

There are toilets, including an accessible toilet, on the lower ground floor. 

The Millennium Gallery has a fully accessible lift and is step free throughout.  

You’re welcome to step out of the room at any time if you need to. Please speak to a member of staff for access to a separate quiet space.  

Audience members will be invited to ask questions at the end of Leah and Jenn’s conversation, but participation is not mandatory.  

This event will be interpreted in British Sign Language.  

You can see more information about accessibility at the Millennium Gallery here: sheffieldmuseums.org.uk/visit-us/millennium-gallery/accessibility  

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