Winter Residencies 2026 Overview
Posted on Fri 17 April
Our 2026 Winter Residents, whose residencies ran from February to March, explored how memory, presence and connection take shape across digital and physical worlds - from a playful digital memorial shaped by collective grief to a heartbeat-responsive light installation.
From a Tamagotchi Séance to an immersive light installation, our 2026 Winter Residencies programme 2026 supported two incredible artists, Nick Murray and Alison Stott, to develop early-stage ideas exploring art and technology. The residencies offered time to take a step back from the day-to-day to think, make, experiment and imagine.
Nick Murray (they/them)
Nick is a producer, game-maker and artist making socially led narrative work focusing on loss, collective memory and digital cultures. They use the Tamagotchi - a digital pet that sits between physical and digital life - as a lens to reflect on death, memory and digital afterlives. Tamagotchi Séance #3: Memory Garden is an online game - a graveyard that collects messages from those who pass through and displays them in the real world.
During the residency Nick undertook inspiring conversations with John Troyer, Professor of Death Studies at Bath Spa University which led them to visit Bristol’s Arnos Vale Cemetery. It was here that the idea kindled to create physical memorial urn shaped sculptures, which would occupy real space while displaying digital messages left by humans in the game world. The prototype work considers how remembrance is shaped by cloud storage, AI distortion and the persistent traces we leave online.
Beyond the residency, Nick will continue development of the piece, scaling it up to be a gallery sized installation.
Nick says:
“It’s hard to put into words quite how much I benefited from my time on the Winter Residency. Being given the time and space to play with new ideas, take risks, and make mistakes is a rare and invaluable opportunity. Pervasive Media Studio has managed to create and maintain a community of makers, whose energy, care and generosity are the lifeblood of the building.”
Alison Stott (she/her)
Alison's practice explores the spaces between art and science, craft and technology, glass and light, material process and lived experience. Alison has been exploring the development of an immersive light installation that considers how we leave our trace on a physical place, and how people, objects and architecture, in relation to one another, shape what a place becomes.
She is particularly interested in the human heartbeat and revealing the hidden synchronisations between humans through presence and participation. She has spent time experimenting with technologies and developing a prototype that that reads human heartbeats and transforms them into pulses of light and colour. The pulses are individual at first, then adapt to synchronise with all the heartbeats that have ever passed through the work.
The piece draws attention to the beat that has come from you that feels like it belongs to you but then merges into the wider rhythm of the space – conveying the idea that we are always in relation to other and part of a community. Alison’s next steps are to progress both the physical and technical elements of the piece, working towards a large-scale installation.
Alison says:
“This residency has been totally transformational for my ongoing practice. I turned up with a big idea, in for me a new direction, but only a sketch of a notion of the practical steps I needed to take to begin. The knowledge base of the Pervasive Media Studio gave me a starting point, set me in a direction and held my hand through the journey. Having that continued support, meant I could take risks and experiment in ways that I couldn’t have otherwise. The sharing events, both of my work with the Studio community and the public, and of other Studio members’ work, has really enriched the ways that I’m seeing what I’m trying to do, offering me insight, perspective and connections in unexpected areas.”
About Watershed’s Winter Residencies
Our annual Winter Residencies programme supports artists to experiment, make and think at the Pervasive Media Studio with no pressure on outcomes. In 2026 it was also an invitation to develop ideas that explored the layers of presence that accumulate in the places we share.
The programme was a part of Watershed’s wider theme of Home, which was a year-long exploration of what it means to find, make, imagine and long for home. It ran across our cinema programme, Undershed exhibitions and creative programme activity. For artists working with us, the theme became a framework for asking questions about belonging, place and identity.
We are excited to kick off two more 2026-27 residencies this month, with director, producer and multidimensional storyteller A1 Vanguard and duo Christopher Harrisson and Jenny Davies who combined have skills in theatre, audio, projection and animation. The artists will work on projects exploring interactive storytelling using bone-conducting technologies and a narrative experience that slowly reveals an unsettling truth hidden within an ordinary space.
We’ll host a sharing of their work in March 2027 - follow us on social media for updates.
Watershed's Winter Residency programme is made possible with support from Arts Council England.