Warehouse

Screening Exhibition
17.04 – 09.05.26

Open
Friday and Saturday, 12–5pm

A camera lingers on a woman as she drifts into sudden states of stillness and sleep, brought about by cataplectic episodes. Through an intimate correspondence, stories of mysterious and subterranean creatures emerge – tracing her own animal attunement around a felt absence

The title, Useful Creature, is taken from a poem by Lotte L.S. written in response to an earlier iteration of this work shown at Western Front, Vancouver in 2025.

Holly Márie Parnell is an artist working in film, installation and live video performance. Taking a documentary approach, her work is built from personal encounters and sustained time spent with people and places. Her practice returns to questions around connection and belonging – looking at the ways in which primal needs are being threatened and eroded within our current systems and frameworks. She is often drawn to our somewhat strange relationship with the natural world, and to the shared disorientation being felt across both human and non-human lives. 

Her work has been shown across the UK and abroad, with recent solo exhibitions at Western Front, Vancouver (2025) and VISUAL, Carlow (2025), as well as previous projects at Jupiter Woods, FORMA, Humber Gallery, Sirius Arts Centre, and TULCA. Her films have screened widely in international festivals including Hot Docs Toronto, Berwick, Dokufest Kosovo, Docs Ireland and Kassel Dokfest among others. She is an alumnus of Film London’s FLAMIN Fellowship, and an MFA graduate of the Slade.