Haunt Assembly is an art, poetry, and sound collective of artists from Southampton: Nicola Malcolm, Olivia Birch, and Beth Newman-Moseley, forming in 2019. Bonded by a shared exploration of memory and nostalgia within their work, the trio collaborate on works informed by their experiences and strong connection to their shared hometown.

 

Influenced by hauntology and place, the collective come together to highlight the mystery and natural wonder that has perhaps been overlooked in Southampton. They use imagery and sound to navigate complex relationships with their hometown and its nature, exploring the polarising emotions that origins evoke.

 

Nicola’s practice records symbols that recur in her life, translating them through interdisciplinary materials that incorporate archival objects to tell stories which make sense of her relationship with memory and time. She is interested in the effect these visual motifs can have on storytelling and defining a sequence of events. Guided by the tension between the desire to conceal or fictionalise and the impulse to share or document, she retells and abstracts her experiences. Inspired by the lenses of 3D glasses, her drawings frequently use red and blue pencils to express ideas such as portals into different realms and the duality of changing and colliding internal and external states.

 

Olivia’s work aims to challenge linear time, embracing fluid narratives shaped by fragmented recalling of events. Recurring images of childhood imagery like cartoons and myths, question how formative experiences shape our adult selves. Fascinated by how memories, especially those tied to place, continue to resonate, she plays with the combination of the mundane, uncanny and fantastical and their battle for importance, as well as their abilities to disguise and morph into each other. Her process begins with a single concept that evolves through a circular journey of abstract mark-making, whimsical figurative elements, and instinctual painterly expression. This layering technique invites moments of surprise and tonal shifts, revealing hidden truths and fragments of forgotten “puzzle pieces.” In this way, Birch’s work mirrors memory itself, reflecting the disjointed interplay of recollection.

 

For Beth, the mysterious, the eerie, and the unknown are central themes of her practice - exploring the intersection of the imaginary and the real through drawing, painting and experimental photographic processes. Guided by intuition, serendipity, and the nuances of everyday life, the work seeks to transform these experiences into narratives that often evoke dream-like states or nightmares.