We are a living, breathing archaeological site. Dig deep enough into our genetic make-up and you will find remnants of our ancestors
All That Remains
All That Remains (i) — detail, 2021 (woollen weaving yarn and PVA adhesive)
Inspired by research into my family history paying particular attention to the female line, archival history of the Lancashire cotton industry (specifically in Preston), Victorian acts of remembrance — using hair to make jewellery and the fact that mitochondrial DNA (passed solely from mother to child) enables female ancestral ‘memories’ to be continued through future generations.
All That Remains (i), 2021
(woollen weaving yarn, PVA and glass)
All That Remains (v), 2021 (woollen weaving yarn and PVA)
All That Remains (iv), 2021 (cyanotype, cotton warp yarn and PVA)
Archaeology Influencing Music Creation, 2021
As part of my MA Contemporary Art and Archaeology I have been working on a collaborative piece.
Inspired by the links between archaeology, and heavy metal and grunge music, especially relating to the artwork on album covers, we decided to consider the modern industrial landscape as though we had time-travelled to the future from the Neolithic. We wondered how they would interpret the things that they saw.
I took a series of photographs relating to modern industry and listened to heavy metal music whilst painting the backgrounds for the CD cover. The images were scanned and sent electronically to my collaborator who then used digital brushes to overlay stylised imagery on the background, before adding the band name and song titles that we had invented. I used sections of the painted background to produce a CD label and the inside of the CD sleeve.
Inspiration for the industrial elements for the CD cover
Resulting CD sleeve and CD label
Agency of the Elements
In the first collaborative piece, part of my MA in Contemporary Art and Archaeology course, we each considered one of the elements (earth, wind, fire and water) and how their agency might affect the landscape and the archaeology of the landscape. Basing my work around the element of the wind, I created some art works relating to memory, time, place and a sense of belonging.
Elemental Wind