Hannah Rickards work deals with perception and its description; with how one can translate an encounter - be that with a sound, an object, a space or an image. It is centered on the framing of description in language, gesture and sound. To date, in particular, Rickards has explored the relationship between atmospheric phenomena and experience of them (a sound heard accompanying the aurora borealis, a remembered image of a mirage, a thunderclap re-performed by a musical ensemble) in installation, video, text and sound works.
BA (Hons) Fine Art, Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design 1999-2002
Thunder (exhibition/performance), exhibited as part of Contemporary Art Society Centenary Programme, Pier Arts Centre, Orkney 2010
Chasing Napoleon, Palais de Tokyo, Paris 2009-2010
No, there was no red. Max Mara Art Prize for Women, Whitechapel Gallery, London 2009
The Quick and the Dead, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis 2009
Nought to Sixty, ICA, London 2008
The sound I think it makes is, is that whispering sound, to me it sounds, it almost sounds, um, uh, what's the word I'm thinking? Um, like historic, not historic, but, um, oh: a legend, it, it sounds like a legend, you know, when you think of a legend or something way back in the past you get that, that, it sounds like that to me, like this legend or somebody's, this whispering sound: it's a legend. The Showroom, London 2007
Don Quijote, Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam 2006
Secret Garden: Beating About the Bush, South London Gallery, London 2005
Fogo Island Arts Residency, Fogo Island, Canada 2011
Gasworks International Fellowship, SOMA, Mexico City 2010
Max Mara Art Prize for Women: residency at American Academy in Rome and the Pistoletto Foundation in Biella 2008
Max Mara Art Prize for Women 2008-2009