london, uK
Not able to leave the flat I have been unable to explore these thoughts as I usually instinctively would - with a camera. I have found myself recounting a journey I took in 2016, to the archaeological sites in Britain where evidence of the very first human species had been found - species that have since become extinct. I photographed these sites but I also recorded the sound of each site and my journey generally- something that at the time seemed far too left-field and abstract to give second thought to! But in the context of an international pandemic these recordings seem to take on a new significance. For some reason I have found myself spending many days listening to them, merging them with sounds from my quarantine and very strange abstract compositions on a small synthesiser and a piano. I guess as a meditation on the past and the future, but also to somehow explore my own emotional processing of the moment in which we find ourselves. I simply hope that by sharing this very personal experience it may encourage others (who are fortunate enough to be afforded the time and mental and physical space to do so) to reflect on and process their own emotional experience of the situation.
The sound is paired with photographs of the archaeological sites themselves, taken in 2016. I've called it "Pubs Shut Till Xmas": taken from The Sun newspaper’s strange front page story on April 20th - that for me, seems to somehow capture the complete surreality of the situation in which we find ourselves.
