A Rural Idyll
In the Forest Garden
Inner Landscapes
Absent Presence
Trace
Photomontage
Performative Drawing
Act of Listening
About
@hortus_silvam
Her practice is interdisciplinary layering digital and analogue processes through acts of quiet activism, listening, photography and unrehearsed performance within the parameters of a loosely defined framework embracing the aleatory.
Inspired by liminal encounters with moments of magical thinking which move on the edge of our senses, her work forms poetic narratives both subjective and observational, reflective and responsive, allowing humour and the absurd to interact with melancholy and disquiet.
Ongoing themes include: unearthing the ‘rural’ in a local East Anglian landscape, where the wild and industrial intersect and elide; performing quiet activism in the Forest Garden Project in collaboration with the non-human within the framework of a quarter-acre piece of land, initiated and tended since 2014; responding to inner landscapes uncovered through the absent presence of objects that weigh heavy with personal histories.
Standford recently screened a collection of moving image works on a theme of domesticity at Project DIVFUSE in London (2025). Her work in sound has been selected for the British Library Sound and Moving Image Archive Collection (2025). She uploads field recordings to the online Radio Aporee sound maps project concerned with the exploration of public space. Her recordings have occasionally been broadcast on Framework Radio and Resonancefm (since 2022).
Solo Exhibitions
2025 Dialogues, DIVFUSE Film Archive No.1 with a theme on domesticity
Collections
2025 Sound and Moving Image Collection, British Library Sound Archive
Sound
2025 Ephemeral Things Digital Album, Bandcamp
2024 Pond Flora & Fauna broadcast Framework Radio/Resonance FM
2023 Drawing Digital Album, Bandcamp
2023 Hiding selected for Murmuration#3 - Species, Digital Album, Bandcamp
2022 The Caged and the Free Digital Album, Bandcamp
2022 Dialogue with my Father III: Now He is Gone Digital Album, Bandcamp
2022 Apple Orchard; In the Forest Garden broadcast Framework Radio/Resonance FM
2022 /prə(ʊ)ˈkrastɪneɪt/ Digital Album, Bandcamp
2022 (in)visible Digital Album, Bandcamp
2022 Chain-Link broadcast Framework Radio/Resonance FM, Field Recording
2022 Domestic Boiler broadcast Framework Radio/Resonance FM, Field Recording
Group Shows
1994 Two Nudes; Two Nudes, projection Ruskin School, Oxford University
1994 Notation Drawings, collage, photomontange on paper, Warsaw, Poland
1994 Nude Against the Light, performance, Reichstag, Berlin
1994 Intangible Distance; Nude Combing Her Hair, performance, Long Room, New College, Oxford
1993 Exhibition of Drawing and Painting, Group Show, work on paper, University College, Oxford
1993 Disembodied; Nude at the Window, performance, Group Show, Bermondsey, London
Residencies
2022 Murmuration#3 - Species, Scotland
2006 What will you be when you grow up? Community mural mosaic, London
2002 Video Portraits Year 7-8 students, digital video with sound 5’, London
1998 Transience; Nude in an Interior objects, performance, 16mm film with sound, London
Curator
2007 The Rhythm of Life an inclusive community art exhibition Croydon Clocktower
Co-founder
2013-15 Make it! a CIC offering art workshops to adults with learning disabilities
Education
2015 Forest Garden Design, Martin Crawford Agroforestry Research Trust, Devon
2000 PGDip Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector
1998 MA Enterprise and Management of the Creative Arts, London College of Communication
1997 PGDip Law, BBP Law School, London
1994 BA Fine Art (Ist Class Hons), Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, Oxford
1990 Fine Art Foundation Course, West Yorkshire
Research
2024 Soil Chromatography, Hannah Fletcher, Land Art
2022 Phytography, Karel Doing
2011 Woodcarving, Robin Wood, Edale
2010 Willow Weaving, Mary Butcher, V&A London
2009 Bookbinding, Camberwell College of the Arts
1994 16mm Film, London Filmmakers Coop
Membership
a-n Artist Membership
Literary Executor
2014- Custodian of the literary estate of composer and writer Patric Standford
Through the 1990s and early 2000s, Standford stopped showing her work while continuing to develop her art practice embracing the emergence of portable, digital video and sound as tools for documentation and manipulation with the accessibility of consumer video cameras, sound recorders, tiny microphones and editing software, while living without a studio in London. During this time she had a child; briefly worked for Book Works (1995) and Wise Music Group (1996); studied PGDip Law (1997) to understand a personal injury claim arising from a road accident; gained PGDip Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector (2000); initiated local, community Artist in Residence projects in London including Video Portraits (2002) and What will you be when you grow up? (2005); curated The Rhythm of Life art exhibition at Croydon Clocktower (2006); home educated her son (2008-2011); co-founded Make it! a CIC offering art workshops to adults with learning disabilities (2013-15).