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The Devil’s Helix
The Devil’s Helix considers a reinterpretation of fossils of the past while questioning the conclusions made of the marks we leave from the future. This digitally manipulated, scaled up iteration of a photographic collage forms part of the artist’s ongoing investigation into future fossils and the implications of human activity on the stratigraphic record. Impressions of activity recorded in stone – traces of long since absent bodies – collectively imagine the daily lives of beings; how they navigated the landscape, the necessities for survival, and the impacts they left on the earth; Rest, travel, dwell, graze, feed, trap, hunt, poise, escape, build, breed. This project appears as part of Exeter Phoenix’s Platform series, which offers artists based in the South West region opportunities to test out ideas, new work and recent developments in their practice. |
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Technofossils - Traces of the Deep Future
Inspired by the geological past and future of Paignton during my residency with Wide Open in September 2024, I created a sculptural installation which explores the boundaries between geology and human, and natural and man-made.
The free standing sea stack holds trace fossils of the future, their forms taken from human interventions in the area, and inspired by fossilised burrows created by ancient sea creatures carving their way through the ground. They are coloured with local geological pigments - a red from the strata that is an iconic signifier of the region, and one from the leftover fragments of mollusk shells; its bright white tinge deriving from a mineral that’s integral to all living beings.
The sea stack itself references folkloric histories and narratives of local geological features, such as the Parson and Clerk sea stacks, visible on the train journey between Paignton and Exeter. In these stories the protagonist is often petrified for their wrongdoings or misfortunes, and left to look out to sea for eternity. Reframing this idea as a modern folklore, the sculpture questions the fate of our material objects as immortalised traces of ourselves, and how these ‘technofossils’ might be interpreted by future geologists as key indicators of our lives and our actions.
Inspired by the geological past and future of Paignton during my residency with Wide Open in September 2024, I created a sculptural installation which explores the boundaries between geology and human, and natural and man-made.
The free standing sea stack holds trace fossils of the future, their forms taken from human interventions in the area, and inspired by fossilised burrows created by ancient sea creatures carving their way through the ground. They are coloured with local geological pigments - a red from the strata that is an iconic signifier of the region, and one from the leftover fragments of mollusk shells; its bright white tinge deriving from a mineral that’s integral to all living beings.
The sea stack itself references folkloric histories and narratives of local geological features, such as the Parson and Clerk sea stacks, visible on the train journey between Paignton and Exeter. In these stories the protagonist is often petrified for their wrongdoings or misfortunes, and left to look out to sea for eternity. Reframing this idea as a modern folklore, the sculpture questions the fate of our material objects as immortalised traces of ourselves, and how these ‘technofossils’ might be interpreted by future geologists as key indicators of our lives and our actions.
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