My practice is an ongoing attempt to archive what isn’t easily archived: emotional inheritance, somatic memory, and the invisible scripts we carry. I work primarily in sculpture and drawing, reimagining childhood objects and domestic forms as sites of rupture, resilience, and transformation. The objects I create—pogo sticks that won’t bounce, bikes that can’t ride, furniture turned soft or hostile—serve as emotional fossils. They don’t hold data. They hold weight.

The archive, for me, is not about preservation. It’s about presence. What does it mean to witness what was never named? What does it mean to give form to an absence?
My current studio practise is a conceptually driven study of trauma using representational everyday objects. Working across sculpture, installation, drawing, and performance, in a diverse material language that privileges process, form, and physicality. At the core of my work is a fascination with how our emotional inheritance shapes our perception.

River Smith, 'Wall of words' (2023) Medium: posca on wall Size: 200 x 400 cm

I work with familiar materials and forms to draw parallels between our memories and the emotional weight objects can carry. It operates under this basic rule: familiar and identifiable objects must be rendered unable to perform their intended function, and/or be rendered in a scale, form, or material which opposes our expectations of said object.

Intentionally dissonant, these largely recognisable forms, are rendered uncanny through shifts in material, texture, or added elements. This is where their power lies, in their familiarity and in the subtle dissonances introduced. The nostalgia of childhood and domestic life, items associated with care or play, is distorted to expose the psychological residue of early formative experiences. This residue shapes the work. The invisible scripts we inherit about safety, shame, protection, and power.

River Smith, 'The Hopper' (2024) Medium: Wire, scrim and plaster Size: 60 x 60 x 60 cm

River Smith 'edgeways' (2023) Medium paint and carpet on carpet Size 86 x 61 x 0.2 cm

​The works invite viewers into a space where these themes surface not through narrative, but through form. It’s a visual language of surrender — explorations of how we survive, transform, and rise from the ruins of what shaped us. It seeks to hold both the wound and the act of healing. Each piece becoming a vessel: a place to name the unnamed, surrender to what was, and open to what could be.

River, (b.1993) is a Manchester-based artist working across sculpture, installation, drawing, and performance. A 2024 graduate of the Manchester School of Art MA program, their practice explores trauma, memory, and emotional inheritance through manipulated everyday objects. Familiar forms—often linked to childhood or care—are rendered dysfunctional or uncanny through shifts in scale, material, or form. These dissonances expose the invisible scripts we inherit around safety, shame, and protection. Recent work includes the Not Safe for Childhood series, examining generational harm and healing. River’s work invites reflection on how we survive, transform, and rise from the emotional architecture that shaped us.