Archaeostrata
Meet the Collective
Alan Endacott
This is Alan Endacott, an amazing mind of all things Dartmoor, from seasonal cycles, ancient droving routes, natural dyes and fibres, ecology, farming on the uplands, where to source a local fleece. Alan descended from a long line of hill farmers and was born in a Dartmoor longhouse. he started a museum on the farm when he was seven and was the founder curator of the Museum of Dartmoor Life in Okehampton.
Alan is a calm inspiring person who knows the moor inside out, he approaches our community with curiosity and exciting creativity and he is one of our archaeologists. His knowledge of the moor is extraordinary on a contemporary level but he also crosses deep time.
Alan is presently working on his doctorate on Prehistoric Ritual and Ceremonial Landscapes of Northern Dartmoor. He is collating a life time of research based on his discovery of the Sittaford Stone Circle, and two unrecorded stone circles near Taw Marsh - Metheral and Irishman’s Wall and led excavations at them in 2024. All these three add more dots into the Sacred Ring of stone circles that radiate out from Watern Combe.
On our residency in March you walk the land with Alan as he shares his knowledge, love and wisdom of the moor, with a focus on his discoveries, his interpretations and inspirational findings. Alan will do a talk on the 2nd night and he will be with us for the whole week where you will be lucky enough to join him at a fireside chair. He generously shares his knowledge and is a great listener and always keen to learn about any archaeology experience that you bring with you.
Fay Stevens
Fay Stevens is an academic, archaeologist, curator and artist.
Her work is a process of excavation, an unravelling of layers of time, memory and substance. It is a philosophical enquiry and experience, concerned with trace, elements, the senses, inscription and corporeal interplay.
She specialises in the philosophical school of phenomenology as a critical and performative prism through which she works. She has held artistic residence in England, Scotland, Hungary and Spain, curated visual and performance events in Arnolfini (Bristol), Salisbury and Bath and hasexhibited her work in UK, Berlin, Sweden, Hungary and Japan. She is Departmental Lecturer in Archaeological Theory, Methods and Approaches and Head of Programmes (Social Sciences) at University of Oxford.
Laura Denning
Dr. Laura Denning is an artist, writer and academic. Her art practice is transdisciplinary, working across film, sound, social participation, curation and installation, often using mark-making (including photography) and walking as experimental methodologies.
Laura’s practice-led research positions art practice within experimental geography, to foreground its environmental and ecological focus. Recipient of a number of awards from Arts Council England and others, Laura recently completed a British Academy funded project, A Feminist Almanac of the Weather, a 2-year exploration of living with the weather as a lens through which to understand kinship. Ductus/A Braille Bestiary – a sound work and artists’ publication, was commissioned by the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity (York University) in 2022, and is now held in the Borthwick Archives. Her films have been screened internationally, including Oxidental Bodies at SoundFjord // Nomadic Sonic Art Gallery & Research Unit at Café OTO, London, as part of Aural Diversities/Encounters (April 2023), as well as in Korea, The Netherlands, USA and Turkey. She teaches Creative Media at the University of Plymouth and is Co-Director of A Sometimes Project CIC
Sarah Sidders
Sarah Sidders is an artist, educator and maker based in Bath. Her studio practice has a duality of outcomes, as painter, an observer of the land and a performance artist, a figure in the land. Her work contextualises and makes tangible the experience of wild places through performance and wearable pieces. Experiential submersion in nature is key to her interpretation of the land and sharing of it. Traces on the land either natural or human feed directly into the concepts in her work.
She has participated in residencies in both polar regions and a number of educational establishments. As a teacher she is a facilitator of confidence and creativity and uses a coaching style to empower students from secondary to adult. She has also led change making environmental and nature connection programs in schools.
Caroline Mawdsley
Artist, educator and Co-Director of A Sometimes Project CIC
Stuart Crewes
Chef! Artist, Creative Programmer, Co-ordinator of Art Week Exeter