Last months I was lucky enough to take part in an artists residency with The Fish Factory Arts Space in Penryn Cornwall.
It was amazing to spend 2 weeks making and getting to know the lovely community around the Fish Factory. I was given the opportunity to put together an exhibition using some of the things I have made in the past 2 years along side my poetry. The following is a digital version of that exhibition. At the end there is a video version as well which includes me reading my poems and the sounds of the XR rhythms band. I hope you enjoy!
Acknowledgements
This work would not have been possible without a community of people they are in every thread of this. Meeting them has changed my life and they continue to inspire me at ever turn. Timber, Lemur, Sea lion, Crow, Mushroom, Joker, members of XR Norwich and XR Rhythms bands.
Thank you to The Fish Factory for making the exhibition possible.
Rebel Yarns
This exhibition was the culmination of over two years of yarn work, environmental activism, an amazing community AND the snap decision to come to The Fish Factory for a residency in June 2023 .
The work explores the links between textiles and the climate crisis, place and community. It responds to the climate and ecological emergencies, the natural and humanitarian disasters that are being driven by it. Many items have been made as a continuing protest against the damage we are doing and a hope we can create a just future.
The accompanying poems are part of a continuing set, documenting my activism as part of Extinction Rebellion from 2021 onwards.
Both yarns and poems come from the same place: a need to tell the stories of the world as it is and differnt possible futures.
Impossible
6th September 2021
I fell in love
silently and soul deep
on the streets of London
The colours pulled me in
and the sound of samba kept me
Too tongue tied for talking
but swept away in conversation
I fell for a crowd of strangers singing
‘The sea is rising and so are we
The sea is rising and so are we’
I fell for a samba band swaying
and playing and playing and playing
The rumble of the surdos
reverberating in a railway station
I fell for speeches and shared silences
for scientists and activists
and streets brought to a standstill
Standing still by a giant bright pink table
with so many people I hardly knew
I fell for shared tears
and holding space for fears
and not forgetting we forge the future
I fell not knowing who I am
but knowing I was where I needed to be
and knowing this is growing and living and being
And hoping
hoping
hoping
We are all crew
Pink origami boat made from Hand-spun and handwoven cloth. materials include lap waste wools with recycled sari silk in the weft and organic cotton for the warp.
Escape
15th October 2022
I want to run to high places
remote and removed
Fortressed in pathless forests and forgetfulness
there I could build a bastion against
the damage we are doing
Slip out of the broken system
and save myself
Cocooned in the seeming wilderness
With community and family
I could craft a life
in treetop hideaways
with views of the sea
Roofed with a night sky
undimmed by city lights
listening to birdsong
Lulled to sleep
by the sigh of summer rain
I might recall a past
Predating the weight of knowing
the catastrophes we are causing
Warmed by a gentle sun
amid sweet peas
and the sound of bees
I might grow a future
with a lucky few
This sheltering sanctuary
both luxury and temporary
might be a solace for what is lost
might soothe and strengthen for a while
But I know
even if idylls were plausible
the damage we have done
to our warming world
will wake me still
in those wild places
Tracks
Hand-spun and hand woven wool yarns, Shetland, Grayfaced Dartmoor, Zwartbles and recycled sari silk weft, organic cotton warp
The Path
Hand-spun and hand woven made using Border Leicester and Shetland wools in warp and weft.
The Shore
Hand-spun and hand woven with lap waste wools and recycled sari silk weft and unspun fibre, charity shop yarn warp.
Last time
25th August 2022
Last time I sat at my loom for three days
wildfires raged 6000 miles away
This time they were 10 mins from my doorstep
Last time
the colours flowed
from frozen to flourishing to flame
and back again
as grief, rage and hope fought for attention
This time
the colours have leached
from my parched world over months
greens to gold
soils to sand
Then it only takes a spark
or 40
bleached to blackened
I don’t know how to grieve for this
I don’t know how to rage
I don’t know how to love enough
to stop the false autumn leaves from falling
to start the rain pouring
We have seen this coming
watching the wider world warming
scientists and activists continually warning
Storms supercharging
floods threatening famine to come
lives and futures lost
Privileged eyes find comfort
our little island is not yet shrinking
our lucky island is not yet starving
As if this is the last time this crisis will visit our doorstep
The last time we will wake to drought
The last time we won’t sleep for the heat
The last time we will watch the fires unfold
or floods engulf until we cannot forget
This time
I will sit at my loom
moments over many weeks
Maybe stealing minutes from time making money
Maybe settling my mind with the movement of my shuttle
My words flow from grief, to rage, to hope
and back again
Our little island could….
Our lucky island should ….
Our comfortable island has to….
Field Fire
Hand-spun and hand woven with zwartbles and lap waste wools weft with recycled sari silk and unspun fibre. Organic Cotton Warp.
Take Flight
Hand-spun wool yarns from the following sheep breeds: Merino, Shetland, Blue Faced Leicester, Zwartbles, Balwen Cross, Romney, Ryeland, Corridale, Blue Texel and North Ronaldsay. Crocheted based on a pattern by Megan Lapp. Made to be worn at demonstrations.
Die in
22nd April 2023
The tower of Big Ben
hangs
alone and
upside down
in my eye line
The empty sky
at odds with the sound of
birdsong
filling this space
where traffic
once thrived
Now occupied by over
60,000 people
lying on the tarmac
We made ourselves trees
as we marched
Branched arms
hands nests
for the machine made echos
of a forest
The walk in the invisible woods was
hopeful
With smiling and singing
chattering and chanting
Wondering that
so many showed up
We were human
when we felled ourselves
Silent and listening
Alone and vulnerable
Grieving
the ecoside we are causing
The absence of life beyond our own
There is a power in this
ten minutes
though there shouldn’t be
This sound of birds should
be so everyday
Even in this city
It is distant human song
that brings us back to life
face paint
tear streaked
There should be a power in this
this silent showing
of collective caring
So many people should make a difference
So many people should change something
beyond ourselves
but from the outside
we can seem
like the birdsong
there
and
gone
Planet A
Hand-spun Zwartbles and lapwaste wool yarns with recycled sari silk. Crocheted to my own pattern. This is a work in progress and willl be complete when it is the size of a room on the barge Bibby Stockholm, about the size of a parking space. The government intends to house 2 refugees per room on the barge for the length of the asylum claims.
Premonition
December 2022
Its October 2019
I am a tourist at a Rebellion
Trafalgar Square
Sat in the road by the roundabout
not knowing what that means
by block built towers with boys on top
by tents and too many police
Out of nowhere loud and unforgettable
a samba band starts
a small circle standing
a woman in the centre with a whistle
signalling, shifting, dancing
inescapable energy from their fingers to their feet
The sound strikes my stomach
rumbling, rallying, calling to action
I do not know you can react to crisis
with dancing!
With creativity and energy
silence sometimes but with strategy
as the cherry picker comes in too fast
and the boys on the tower are taken down
I leave still uplifted to have witnessed it
Fast forward a pandemic
how that shrunk my world
and all my good intentions to get involved
it's March 2021
I am 0 rebellions old
I stand cold In a park by the football fields
and pick up a drum
nervous and not in time
knowing nothing and no one
but it’s a start
The first test comes
August 2021
I am half a rebellion old
With 5 tunes in my head
my drum on my hip
I learn what it means
to defy authority with our bodies
when we block Oxford Circus
Women at the centre
locked on to a block built bright pink table
encircled with hands glued together
Authority responds
with with a bike as a battering ram
That is before we encircle them
surround them with sound
silence the Section 14
as long as we can
witness the arrests
for peaceful protest
Leaving is hard
but I know my limits
sit watching the stories
on screens in hostel bar
Those weeks I watch them
my 6 months samba siblings
step up, sending the signals
leading the band break after break
bringing us back to the beat
keeping us on our feet
6 hours a day or more
Time somehow trebles its speed
It's October 2022
I am 2 full rebellions old
and a day
Outside Downing Street
we are blocking the road
and burning our energy bills
I step into the circle
one woman with a whistle
100 drummers or more
shifting my feet to keep the beat
Somehow signals start to flow
I still do not know I can do this
still see myself on the sidelines
not calling the action
but the band knows the breaks
and I do my best
I walk away in wonder still shaking
I would not have believed this
just one month ago
even though I’ve worked at it
and wanted it for a while
This is now a world where
I can whistle
Friendship has forged this
I have seen them step up
day after day
practise and protest
Pouring their energy creatively into a strategy
being a change we all want to see
whether they believe it will happen or not
In the hope one day we can say
this is a world where
we have won
Comentários