Looking back on: Hoofing it by Charlotte Miles
Updated: 2 days ago
Hoofing it by Sheffield-based artist Charlotte Miles, draws from the imagery of the worlds’ oldest classic horse race, the St Legers Stakes, and games such as Roll-a-Derby and Mario Kart, to create an absurd race course filled with illogical creatures and their jockeys that grows over several days of workshops to fill the entire ArtBomb shop space.
To commemorate 250 Years of St Legers, ArtBomb invited Charlotte to transform our shop space on Hall Gate into a 360 degree racecourse, complete with warm grass green walls and an astroturf floor.
We first came across Charlotte's work at Sunny Bank Mills' Ones to Watch 2026 exhibition back in April, where Charlotte was exhibiting A Load of Old Pony, alongside work by other emerging artists from Yorkshire, including Ellis Hutton (@ellisdavisknitwear), who was involved in ArtBomb Festival 2025.
During the anniversary weekend (12 - 13 September 2026), members of the public of all ages were invited to come into ArtBomb and create their own absurd horse creature from repurposed cardboard, coloured pens & other materials, Each contribution was stuck to the walls or suspended from the ceiling, allowing the racecourse to grow whilst also doubling as a creative evaluation method by visually tracking how many people had taken part in the workshops.
A large sculpture created by the artist, a hand-painted (oil paint) plywood racehorse with miniature mice jockeys and subtle absurdities such as back-to-front legs, was exhibited in one of the bay windows to generate interest from passersby and to anchor the smaller artworks made during the workshops inside.
ArtBomb commissioned Jennifer Rozenfelds aka Jackhno (Instagram @jackhno_dancepunk), a local DJ and curator of gigs such as Love Music Hate Racism and EMOM (Electronic Music Open Mic), to create an audio clip to be used on a Hoofing It promotional video.
"Being born and bred in Doncaster, the St Leger brings back memories from very long ago. I wanted to capture that nostalgia by sampling old horse racing commentary, bringing in some foley of horses running, and a little synth in the background too for extra texture.
Using some lofi production techniques, I crunched up the sounds with digital distortion and tape wobble, which also helped to glue the layers together, alongside more traditional compression and EQing, into one coherent whole, whilst also reflecting the aural memories that I carry within my head."
Mark Lambert (Instagram @mad_murals_one), an independent artist, a member of the Squiggle Gang street art collective and part-time Studio Assistant at ArtBomb, contributed to the external shop design for the exhibition, hand-painting textured green bushes and sign-writing "Hoofing it by Charlotte Miles" as per the artists' brief.
ArtBomb also commissioned local DJ, Jennifer Rozenfelds aka Jackhno (Instagram @jackhno_dancepunk), to create a short audio clip to accompany a short promotional video for Hoofing It. You can hear the audio clip here.
On creating the sound for this project, Jen said:
"Being born and bred in Doncaster, the St Leger brings back memories from very long ago.
I wanted to capture that nostalgia by sampling old horse racing commentary, bringing in some foley of horses running, and a little synth in the background too for extra texture.
Using some lofi production techniques, I crunched up the sounds with digital distortion and tape wobble, which also helped to glue the layers together, alongside more traditional compression and EQing, into one coherent whole, whilst also reflecting the aural memories that I carry within my head."
Jennifer Rozenfelds (aka Jackhno)
ArtBomb has kept these works on display until end of October 2026, to maximise the numbers of people who get to see an artists' work.
It also felt important to use our high street space to extend the St Leger anniversary celebrations beyond the race weekend, allowing local residents who may not have attended the race events to engage with the celebrations through a creative lens. This durational approach to event delivery at ArtBomb is proving to be a valuable access strategy which would work well for future heritage-based celebration events in Doncaster.
Thank you to Rachel Blake (Partnership & Engagement Manager, Heritage Doncaster) for supporting our vision for this project.
Funding eceived from Heritage Doncaster has enabled Charlotte to create their second large sculpture piece. In turn, it has opened up new possibilities for ArtBomb around how we can invite other visual artists to takeover our shop space and create immersive works which local residents in Doncaster can step into from the street outside.
"It [my residency at ArtBomb] has been a genuinely great experience. Being given the freedom and trust to design the entire space and put on workshops has given me the confidence and experience as an emerging artist to take on solo residencies and produce more community focused projects.
Jennie and Mike could not have been more accommodating and helpful, it was a pleasure to work with them on this residency."
Charlotte Miles
