I'm interested in our relationship with material objects and their intrinsic link to memory and personal narrative and a museum such as The Coffin Works is particularly pertinent to this relationship. I wanted to explore not only the huge range of values and beliefs associated with death but also the changing nature of trade within Birmingham and the relevance of memorialising our City's history.
As such I have been making small 'cocoon' type forms to symbolise the one element of death that unites all religions and that is the transition of the human body to whatever may be coming next, if anything at all. The cocoons, or pupae, also symbolise Birmingham's ability to transform and reinvent itself from it's history of the 'workshop of the world'.
Each pupae contains an object selected to represent a particular trade, carefully tagged and catalogued. The pupae themselves have been made from unwanted clothing, the materials chosen to echo the linings and shrouds made in the Newman Brothers sewing room, and in this regard I am making my own choices of which objects are to be protected as important historical items and which are to be simply cut up to be used for the material itself, questioning the nature of museums and how value is subjective within them. The title therefore comes from an old African proverb, Until the lions have their historians, history will always favour the hunter.
Delicate and hauntingly beautiful pieces by the artist. They seem to echo not only a history but a story.
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