NESTA fellowship
2003-2010
Film and sculpture installation ‘Ground Bound’
The ‘Ground Bound’ film (left) animates the sculpture, fusing visual art, text, performance and the environment. Ground Bound is a performance piece exploring the challenge of injury and retirement from the air. The accompanying sculpture in resin and glass is illuminated to emphasize physical and mental pain. Rebecca chooses to wear no costume to illustrate the emotional vulnerability of the transition.
National Fairground and Circus Archive Exhibition
RopeWomen,
20th july 2026-13th december 2026
Carnival Crowd
2023
Resin with papier mache and textiles
100 x 100 x 13cm
Carnival Crowd represents the audience by acknowledging the two-way relationship that exists between them and the performer. The sculpture captures the audience as an active element of the performance, where its reactions and interactions affect the feeling of the show, causing a response in the performer.
Carnival Crowd was inspired by a visit to the Venice carnival, where Rebecca observed that the crowds formed the carnival rather than being spectators. This reverberated with Rebecca’s experience as a performer and the way that circus audiences frequently become participants in her shows.
Finale
2025/26
Resin with papier mache
134 x 144 x 36cm
Finale expresses the celebratory spirit of the end of a show where performers re-emerge from their caravans to parade in their finery once more to the audience's applause. Finale represents the soul of the aerialist, whose costume on the trapeze is traditionally minimal by necessity, and often adds a beautiful cloak and elaborate headdress for the final parade.
Ring Doors
2024
Resin with papier mache and textiles
100 x 100 x 13cm
Ring Doors conveys the immediate space between frontstage and backstage at the circus. The last space where the rush to get ready for the show occurs. Behind the scenes, performers race from their caravans, dressing gowns over their costumes often head down to the wind and rain. At the ring doors, still under the cover of the curtains, they carry out last minute preparations, props are set, bodies stretched, and showbiz personas assumed. Just before their grand entrance, the humble dressing gown and umbrella are swapped for elaborate stage cloaks and headdresses in readiness to make their appearance through the magical threshold of the ring doors, which transport them from mundanity to stardom.
Rope Women
2025/26
Resin with papier mache
147 x 91 x 17cm
Rope Women represents the bond between the two protagonists of a doubles trapeze act, the catcher and the flyer. It delves into the close connection between the two performers and the synchronisation of their bodies and minds in a deep act of trust, physical and mental strength, and extreme accuracy and precision. Rope Women captures a moment of complex entwinement of the bodies in the air conveying the superhuman feat of strength and flexibility required to perform death defying throws and catches on the trapeze. The clench of a small muscle in the heel, the tension in a neck against the partner or the rope, all happening at once to safely meld the bodies together.
Pre Show Installation
2010
Film – ‘Pre-show’
Pre-Show evokes the feeling of preparing for a show. The mental and physical preparation is changing from Becky into Firebird. Filmed in Leeds City Varieties and Billy Smarts Circus, both of which she has performed in, it is full of circus imagery, combined with archive footage of her Firebird act.
Cartwright Hall Museum and Gallery
2018
The Audience wall panel sculptures
This 12 x 2 m set of relief sculptural panels were set around a performance installation to represent the impact of the audience response on the performance. Each panel showed a different element of the audience experience; watching and listening- reacting through applause and sound. The marble filler in the resin was designed to create the effect of evolving from the marble walls of the gallery.
Nature Casting
Rebecca’s passion for life casting extends to all living things. She captures nature and it’s ever changing compositions from the landscape around her home in West Yorkshire
Silicone head-private commission
‘Shibari Foor’ private commission
Individual Commissions
Rebecca is available to discuss personal life casting projects.