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Nightsong. A body of artworks including glass objects, sculptures, drawings, paintings, video installation and live events and a publication exploring the representation longing, seduction, desire and loss. National Glass Centre (NGC), Sunderland (2009-10); Hå gamle prestegard, Norway (2011); VANE Gallery, Newcastle (2013). Group exhibitions at International Print Biennial, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle (2011); Torrence Art Museum, Los Angeles (2011): Charlie Smith gallery, London (2011); Orleans House Gallery, London (2012); Angus Hughes Gallery, London (2012); Aid and Abet, Cambridge (2012); September Gallery, Berlin (2013); LaunchF81, New York (2013).

Created during a residency at the National Glass Centre, Nightsong explored narratives of longing, loss and hope drawn from a deliberately subjective selection of mythologies, genres and art historical periods. These included 7th Century stained glass, Neoclassical painting, Fin de Siècle literature, decorative glass, floriography and lunar mythologies. The research explored how the currency of symbols and materials historically used to express the theme of the project, sentiment and emotional experience, could be revisited and transformed though a visual art project combining a range of contemporary modes of practices spanning fine art and craft.

These practices included, for example, the accumulation of a physical archive, ‘The Longing Archive’, which collected together physical examples of the languages of social courtship and the ephemera of romance. Two live-art projects extended the archive through participatory work; in ‘Write a Love Letter’, members of the public were invited to submit love letters, building a unique record of emotional desires. ‘Longing Disco’ involved participants submitting songs connected to their own courtship stories. These vocal ‘confessions’ were produced as (golden) vinyl LP. Other strands in the project included the creation of glass objects (drawing on the technical expertise and resources of the NGC), sculptures, drawings, paintings and video installation.

The project synthesized Fox’s research into codified languages of longing (e.g. floriography) with his exploration into how the processes of art-making could reflect the themes of the research, e.g. ‘devotion to labour’. Thus he deployed labour intensive methodologies – e.g. painstakingly cutting by hand, large and very intricate paint cut-outs, to create ‘enduring tokens of sentiment’: objects that created a direct index between raw sentiment and its visual articulation and that blurred boundaries between fine art and craft (boundaries that are similarly blurred in the historical objects Fox draws upon). A supporting monograph was funded by ACE.