Exeter Phoenix Announces Charlotte Bill as an Associate Artist for 2024
Published August 20, 2024
The next artist to be joining the esteemed ranks of Exeter Phoenix’s associate artists is filmmaker and musician, Charlotte Bill.
Charlotte’s films take us into the worlds of the overlooked and underrepresented; focusing on working class history, women, activists and outsider artists, she creates her work using documentary, archive materials, landscape and music.
Charlotte is working with the Dartmoor Preservation Association, The Lost Giants, The Stars are for Everyone, various volunteers and Clapham Film Unit to create Dartmoor Calling. She will be collecting the stories of the people who saved Dartmoor from development, the people who are restoring nature on Dartmoor and the people working for land access rights on Dartmoor. The project will involve creating a documentary, booklet, two guided walks and a set of oral history recordings, and will be developed during her time as an associate artist at Exeter Phoenix.
Here’s what Charlotte says about the project:
“Sylvia Sayer (1908 - 2000) was an activist, fearless campaigner and loving grandmother. Known as the Shield of Dartmoor, she campaigned against development and spoliation of the moor. She fought the military, the government, the clay companies and the water board.
Clapham Film Unit and the Dartmoor Preservation Association are running two free Sylvia Sayer Walks in August, which will take us to some of the places she saved and some of the battles she lost. Kate Ashbrook, activist and general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, vicechair of the Campaign for National Parks and of the Dartmoor Preservation Association, who was inspired by Sylvia Sayer and became a close friend, will be there to tell stories on the way. I met Kate when I was making a documentary about the Right to Roam. Kate told me about campaigning with Sylvia Sayer on Dartmoor in the 1970s. Later the same year I found myself on Dartmoor with 3000 other people protesting the wild camping ban. I met many activists and members of the Stars are for Everyone and Right to Roam.
These experiences led to the development of Dartmoor Calling, supported by players of the National Lottery. Dartmoor Calling will tell Sylvia’s story and will collect the stories of today’s activists and campaigners from The Stars are for Everyone and the Right to Roam. 75 years apart in time but united by their love for Dartmoor as a wild a special place, a National Park to be kept free for all of us to enjoy.
I am excited to be an Associate Artist with Exeter Phoenix. I will be able to develop this project, reach a wider community and find a supportive environment to share Dartmoor Calling.”
Claire Horrocks, Film Programmmer at Exeter Phoenix said:
"Charlotte is at a really exciting point in her current project and it felt like her work and position as a skilled documentary filmmaker aligned her perfectly to join Exeter Phoenix as an Associate Artist. Following a post screening Q&A event last year, where we hosted Charlotte and her film RIGHT TO ROAM, we understood Charlotte's motivation use film to inspire change and observe social movements. We are also excited to welcome her back to Exeter Phoenix, where she spent her early filmmaking career learning to edit."