Skins of Britain
1 Month Studio Residency at CAST, Helston, Cornwall - August 2018
'Skins of Britain' was conceived during a month spent in the small town of Helston in Cornwall during the summer of 2018.
What emerged from repurposed ship sail off cuts from a local sail maker, 10 bails of hay from a local farm, old wood from the CAST building and local surroundings and many kilograms of local apples, was a creature.
I explored the use of ship sails and their relation to colonial histories in such a way that one might stretch or display animal hide. The pieces that emerged also appear like maps; another link to concepts of land ownership. I uncovered a tension/ grey area that interwove folk art traditions and the aesthetics of a British summer fair with questions concerning colonialism, culture and the power of material choice, scale and political layering through visual language.
Carved into each apple is the shape of every single country invaded by Britain.
'Locally Sourced'
Digital short film
It is an experimental digital film exploring a scaled down scenario relating to the colonialism found in Cornwall. A scene on the left showing 'up country people' from highly educated backgrounds undertaking an archaeological dig in southern Cornwall. Scene on the right of mainly local Cornish folk enjoying the annual ancient pagan festival held in Helston in early May known as Helston Flora Day.
There is a juxtaposition of the two. The story is always the same, the highly educated privileged academics on the left, digging up the ancient local history of those on the right, with those on the right likely to never obtain or gain access to the findings of their history on the left in such immediacy. A scaled down metaphor of the structure of Anthropological and Archaeological scientific findings ingrained into social structure and lack of accessibility given to the less privileged.