I will be having a solo exhibition at the Barony Centre in West Kilbride in May 2018 of some new works I have been developing over the past 12 months. The work is based on research I have been looking into around the expansion of refugee camps as a result of conflict in a number of parts of the world. This is the first solo exhibition I have undertaken for quite some time and features the first new work made after losing the majority of my research and practice in the Mackintosh Building fire in May 2014.

The origins of this work are rooted in reading Native Land, Stop Eject, a catalogue to accompany the exhibition of the same name at Fondation Cartier in Paris in 2008. This exhibition was conceived by filmmaker Raymond Depardon and urbanist and philosopher Paul Virilio and explores notions of identity and sedentariness. It comments-

"While the world has reached a critical moment in its history, where the environment conditions what humans do and what they will become, the exhibition Native Land, Stop Eject proposes a reflection on the notions of being rooted and uprooted, as well as related questions of identity."

I was reading this book whilst on holiday in the Greek islands in the summer of 2015 and witnessed the early stages of migration and refugees making their way from Syria and other conflict zones via Turkey and North Africa, across the Mediterranean to any beach they could make it to. This was a truly poignant moment where a grim realisation of some of the texts from Native Land was unfolding before me, seven years after the publication of this book.

This spawned a large wealth of research which resulted in me making work related to the notion of land use and the formation of 'super' refugee camps, Za'atari and Azraq in Jordan and more recently Kutapulong in Bangladesh. These camps have been conceived as temporary places but are fast becoming permanent due to the ongoing conflicts in the respective countries. I am interested in the architecture of the buildings, the attempts by UNHCR to provide some form of shelter and the financial, political and human rights issues associated with housing and the relocation of these displaced people back to their own lands.

As part of disseminating the ideas I will be working with the local Primary school in West Kilbride, whereby the children will be making their own versions of refugee camps based on a printed template I will give to them. They will be gathering their own materials, recycling and rubbish and will collage this on to the templates to be included alongside my own work in the exhibition.We will run workshops with volunteers to help with the cutting and fabrication of the new shelters the children create.