ANNIE FROST NICHOLSON
Annie Frost Nicholson is a London-based interdisciplinary artist whose work examines some of the most uncomfortable and tragicomic aspects of the human condition. The Fandangoe Discoteca is a touring mini club which invites the public to dance out their grief, from climate rage to Brexit fury to bereavement, all intersections of loss are welcome. This piece is at Southbank Centre in July and August, including a Grief Rave. Annie’s painting practice has been shortlisted by Delphian Gallery as one of the winners of their Open Call 2024, following a solo show at Dorothy in Liverpool alongside the Discoteca at Royal Albert Dock. She has an installation called the A Piece of Silk at RMIT in Melbourne opening in July, exploring the space between life and death.
Annie’s public realm work intersects with her painting practice, which has evolved into large scale wall hangings with textile narratives, reflecting upon memory, the human condition, the stories we tell one another and how our cultural and anthropological experiences of the world coexist. Annie responds carefully to time and space, working with community groups across London, the UK and internationally for many years to develop workshop programmes in advance of her installations. She lectures twice a week in experiential design at Chelsea College of Art, UAL.
Frost Nicholson has carefully developed her practice over the past twelve years, most recently working in the public realm to create aesthetically powerful touring grief and mental health installations. The Fandangoe Discoteca, a touring disco for mental health and collective grief (London, Milton Keynes and Berlin 2023), complete with a series of Grief Raves, was made in collaboration with The Loss Project, K67 Berlin and Street Soundsystem. The Fandangoe Whip, an ice cream van for post-pandemic grief and mental health (Latitude, Design Museum, Tate 2021), and The Fandangoe Skip, a kiosk for mental health (London and New York 2022), received footfalls of over 200,000 and international acclaim, culminating in a BBC World Service documentary about her practice.
Her work has recently been on show at Young V & A, as part of a commission for the Yokai exhibition, at Charleston Trust as part of Supergraphics Newhaven, and permanent pieces are The Hope Exchange in London Bridge (LDF 2022) and Creativity Will Save Our Souls at London College of Communication (UAL, 120th Anniversary).
The Juicy Booth, a micro booth where you can come and release your shame and shed your guilt opened in Coal Drops Yard in September 2024 for London Design Festival, featured in Wallpaper*, The Times and The Financial Times' pick of LDF. The Juicy Booth goes to Potsdamer Platz, Berlin from December 2024 - Spring 2025.
Annie has another solo painting show scheduled for this November and plans to begin a PhD in socially engaged practice at Chelsea College of Art next year. She lectures part time in experiential design at Chelsea UAL.
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ABOUT ANNIE FROST NICHOLSON
Graduating from University of the Arts with Graphic Design in 2009, following a BA Hons in French and Italian from Sussex University in 2007, Frost Nicholson has always been fascinated by language and intimacy and has sought to communicate these visual threads throughout her career, closely influenced by artists Sophie Calle, Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger. After losing so many family members soon after graduating, navigating the non-linear world of grief and loss through her practice became Frost Nicholson’s direct line of survival, and her body of work has grown within and around her experience of being alive in the world.
The Staircase of Dreams (2020, longlisted for a Dezeen Award) and The Hope Exchange (2022), both commissioned for London Design Festival, are further examples of Frost Nicholson’s public realm work, receiving wide international press coverage and serving to create spaces for Londoners to find solace in their busy days, brightening up the mundane and lifting spirits as we navigate the hardest of times.
During the first lockdown, Frost Nicholson redesigned nurse’s scrubs for Marie Curie x NHS England, working with a palliative care nurse remotely to develop the uniform, celebrating International Year of the Nurse, as part of her ongoing working relationship with the charity. The artist’s work was then shot for a feature about grief and mental health for Channel 4, looking at the importance of her practice in the pandemic.
Frost Nicholson’s oeuvre is multi-disciplinary and includes film : in 2019 she screened her first short Into Your Light, directed with Tara Darby, at Tate Modern and on the Manhattan Bridge, looking at dancing as a tool for survival following great personal loss. This led to her first book, Tender Hearted Bold Moves, published by Rough Trade Books in 2020, followed closely by The Grief Mixtape, a monthly radio show on Soho Radio, exploring all forms of loss with guest artists such as Camille Walala, Morag Myerscough, Adam Nathaniel Furman and Wendy Erskine.
Annie’s most recent film, Grief is a Hungry Ghost, co-directed with writer Lara Haworth, is a film about love, loss and resistance shot in Rio, funded by Arts Council England, has been screened at Garden Cinema London, Tokyo Film Festival, Munich New Wave and Belgrade International Film Festival.
Frost Nicholson lectures part-time at Chelsea University of the Arts and London College of Communication (BA Graphic Design), following a decade of working with young people in an arts capacity. She established and built an Art and Design department in a Hackney secondary school in 2014 and was then selected as Lead Designer on Design Museum’s young people’s programme for the duration of 2022. Frost Nicholson’s remit is simple : to encourage young people from all backgrounds to know themselves better through their creative practice.
Frost Nicholson’s capsule clothing collection label has featured in Vogue Italia and been worn at the BAFTAs and sold out her show at Ace Hotel in NYC, where she later became an Artist in Residence. She now makes to order and all pieces can be viewed in her online shop.
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