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Mike Sims

Ground Collective Artists

Mike Sims has collaborated on many art and poetry projects, including Letter of advice to Amy by Joseph Cornell (AKA The Amy Box), My Book a Lever and This Westward with Roy Willingham RE. His letterpress-printed leporello 8 Divagations, made for the Ground Collective exhibition By the Way, was exhibited at the Printed Poetry symposium, Bristol. He has produced two poetry collections with Julia Bird, Paper Trail (2019) and A Joy Forever (2021). He is a co-founder of the small press, Blown Rose (blownrose.uk).

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How does your work relate to the idea of Uncertain Edges?

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For me, being a member of the Ground Collective is about going, looking and listening to find a text and a form. I’m testing external stimuli – what I encounter – against the sensations and thoughts they provoke or connect with (inevitably, we are always thinking). That’s the ‘uncertain edge’: what happens between the found and the formed.

Mike Sims

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Can you describe your artistic process?

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An expedition in search of a visual poem is a ridiculous idea that sometimes works out. Interesting that the word ‘expedition’ used to imply aggressive intent and I started out from Warrior Square train station…

Mike Sims

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Can you tell us something about the content of your work and the inspiration/impetus behind it?

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The poetry I write in connection with Ground Collective projects is loose, fragmentary, and expansive. It’s generally reflective of a place but some of the allusions are less about what’s seen than what I research, away from the place itself and that I find a connection with. It’s descriptive of process as well as matter. I like coming to a space with the idea to write about it and seeing what happens when I’m in it.

Mike Sims

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How and where do you make your work?

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I go to look for something with no guarantee it will work or that what I turn up will be any good. It’s important to stay engaged – it’s disappointing when the end result feels a bit random, I can’t just drop in and ‘find’ something. I take photographs and write notes or lines; I try to take my time and look closely. It’s good to be on my own, but I also like to watch and listen in on other people’s experiences. The writing may be on the spot but it develops away from the site too. I have to keep checking the idea against a thought process. I let the thought process lead the text because I enjoy the stimulus, the process of discovery, but I might look for patterns as a way to organise the ideas that emerge, and ways to bring these strands to the fore.

Mike Sims

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