That which you wove of lightest thread, I wear to honour stone
Behind a padlocked tall iron gate the unmarked graves lie silent - a forgotten hidden place - small mounds of earth cover the graves of children marked only by a stick. The fragility of human life felt so quiet, so tragic … (Forgotten Refugee Graveyard, Lesvos 2019)
In this forgotten place my silent thoughts searching to make sense of lives taken so violently … lives barely making a mark. I return in the early hours to shoot my timebased video work 'Unchosen', a moving still amidst the waking sounds of the countryside as the sun rises over the unmarked graves. When I return home I can’t stop thinking about the immense tragedy of it all. I want to lay something gentle, something beautiful over their graves as an act of remembrance.
That which you wove of lightest thread, I wear to honour stone (Paul Celan's poem "Totenhemd"). This ephemeral intensely fragile display of skeleton leaves I gathered over a period of 2 years and sewn together with my hair, will over time decompose and return to the earth. It considers the relationship between art and the fragility of the world we live in. Seemingly suspended in a state of transformation, the leaves filll the space between life and death.
A ‘cloak of mourning’ made of skeleton leaves and sewn together with my hair- so fragile - filling the space between life and death. Made of the earth and the body, with time it will return to the earth, to dust. The fragility of human life felt so quiet, so tragic …
leaves in cage, Yorkshire Moors Festival and L’Auditori Barcelona
My video work Unchosen is about this forgotten place. When I came home I couldn’t stop thinking about the immense tragedy of it all. I wanted to lay something gentle, something beautiful over their graves as an act of remembrance. (Forgotten Refugee Graveyard, Lesvos 2019)
