Over the past eighteen years I have been creating multimedia solo performance and live art pieces.
The content of my work has grown from an autobiographical view of psychological and emotional life to a more curious mix of feminism, identity, gender, sexuality, and difference. I am concerned with portraying the human condition in my work. Human beings are so complicated and delicate and in a constant state of flux which is amazing, beautiful, tragic and grotesque at the same time.

My research interest as an artist in contemporary critical theory and psychoanalysis, is reflected by the content of my own work which has in the past focused on themes from Freudian hysteria and Foucauldian sexual transgession, to the performativity of gender (Butler), voyeurism and the gaze (Lacan; Mulvey).

My personas are live moving images; visual metaphors that question cultural norms and identities.  These highly stylized personas are created by combining costumes, make-up, installation, dance and text, with historical content from different time periods and cultures.  The result is a series of strikingly bizarre personae, which the audience encounters.

I use movement as a metaphor for my conceptual frame work. I continue to developing my research into my own movement vocabulary. My performances communicate with text of a poetic nature but also through movement, gesture, expressions, touch and eye contact. I feel that this is a more intimate way of interacting with audience members that affect people in a more instinctual way.

I am very concerned with the holistic aesthetic of the experiences that I create for my audience through live art. This includes creating installations that are almost always site specific and experienced on a one-to-one or intimate group basis. I develop highly aesthetic dream like atmospheres which the audience member enters into. As a performer I try to make it apparent that the participants are an integral part of this environment.

I have exhibited my works regionally, nationally and internationally. I have a successful record of accomplishment in my professional practice and have international standing as a Multimedia Performance and Live Artist, as demonstrated by my work being awarded various Arts Council of England grants, commissions and awards; as an individual artist, for collaborative projects, and as a platform organiser and education coordinator. As an artist and lecturer I was invitation to be the Key Note Speaker at the Feminism and Teaching Conference at Nottingham University in 2011.

My most recent artist research interests (2013-15) are personal as I was diagnosed with (ASD) Autism Spectrum Disorder five years ago. I went through a huge adjustment period where I tried to discover what was intrinsically “me” and what was due to my disability. I am still trying to figure this out.  This lead to my research into ASD and the neuroscience behind it. I am interested in how non-nerotypical brains are different and ever resilient.  I am currently in talks with academics at the University of Nottingham and Autism east midlands to develop several interrelated projects and workshops. The projects working title is Adventures of Super Aspie Girl. I would like to make two interconnected pieces of performance art on my own retrospective experience with ASD looking back at my life and experience with a new understanding. I would like to make a performance for stage and a one-to-one performance for this project. I want these works to comments on the human condition and something that all people could identify with as all my work has done in the past. It has taken me a long time to build up to this project as I did not want to make something that alienated anyone or made me the authority on ASD. This disorder affects individuals who are all unique and important. I would like to work in conjunction with and learn from other people with ASD. Ass part of my research for this project I aim to devise and develop a series of workshops titled Be your own Hero: where I work with children, teenagers and adult on the Autistic spectrum to design their own super hero costumes based on their special skills and interests. I would then create these costumes with them and develop a video piece if possible with willing workshop participant.  This will add to my research and development towards the solo multimedia performance and one to one piece possibly in collaboration with workshop participants. Thirdly to create an creative academic output in collaboration with academics at Nottingham University to see how performance and live art can add to the academic debate around Autism Spectrum Disorder.

“Annette Foster’s work draws on the imagery of fairy tales, Victoriana, de Sade and the history of pornography. In performances that are theatrical, intimate and unsettling, she explores sexuality, memory, voyeurism and the hidden tensions of social interaction. Costumes are used to create characters that suggest particular archetypes, values or emotional states. The performing character, often exotic in appearance, acts as a channel for the revelation of secrets and memories.”

Tim Harrison