This exhibition began with the installation of some paper flowers of hope in the garden at South Square, Thornton, Bradford. they were expected to decay over time, but their printed texts and images remained. At the close, I was commissioned to work on the ides of seed and rebirth for a large indoor exhibition a year later.

Something Rich and Strange EXHIBITION 

This exhibition made use of a variety of sources and by focusing on gardening and the soil, was able to consider ideas about temporality, belief, cyclical patterns and the rhythms of life and death.

The work included painting, photography, small sculptures and a museum of objects, including seeds which indicated resurrection. There were games to play and scientific diagrams to decipher. Sounds of the life beneath the soil played throughout the exhibition. I hoped it would be interesting to look at and thought provoking. All visitors found themselves included in the exhibition by means of a mirror.

Dr. James Longbotham of the University of Manchester helped me to understand the biochemistry of decay in the soil and how elements are used again to create new life.

 “Nothing of him that doth fade,

  But doth suffer a sea change

  Into something rich and strange”   Shakespeare, The Tempest.

From the grave of Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 – 1822 Protestant Cemetery, Rome.

2015 WAS THE UNITED NATIONS YEAR OF THE SOIL

WE ARE ALL RECYCLED!