This work is looking at entanglement and the embedding of old knowledge into new concepts, creating new systems with which to view the future: the flow of ideas back and forth into the past, through the present into the future weaving new stories. The entwining of technology with historical wisdom and practices can be seen in the work. It explores the resilience of plants and what can be learnt from this. 

 

Through the unseen the work reflects on the natural world using the medium of collage, screen printing and digital design. The work looks at the complex connections and associations we have with our surroundings, teasing out the layers of information that are contained in a single viewpoint or image and recombines them speculatively. Of importance are the things that are seen but not noticed – veins on a leaf the sewn stitches on a seam, things that cannot be seen with the naked eye and are on the periphery of our vision. The areas out of focus in a photograph, the space between what we see, it’s translation in our mind to its definition – the conglomeration of shapes and colours that become interpreted by language, experience and knowledge. It considers the idea of reality; is the thing we see actually what it is? 

 

The conventional view we have of things and how we communicate with them is challenged in the work which is influenced by Jane Bennett’s ‘Vibrant Matter’, in which she asks the viewer to envisage creating a new way of looking at the world. A view which does away with the hierarchical idea that humans are the only agents on the planet. The work embodies Jane Bennett’s idea that we are all interconnected as humans and with our environment. All things (human, living, non-human and non- living) are made up of several parts each part working to maintain a whole and to stay connected to other parts this can be seen in the collages where each image supports is neighbour through texture and subject matter. These interlocking networks (or patterns) and interconnection are elements that can be found within this series.