A series based on hyperbolic geometry, crocheted using stainless steel and copper wire.
A series knitted or crocheted in the round from aluminium wire using the Fibonacci sequence or sequences of prime numbers.
A series knitted or crocheted in the round from galvanised iron or stainless steel wire.
The Not-Doings are made from recycled materials, suspended to form a colony. This work was part of an investigation into rites of passage and takes its title from The Eagle's Gift, one of a controversial series of books by Carlos Castaneda popular in the 1960s and 70s, in which the author tells of being suspended from a tree all night in a "Not-Doing", a rite of passage on his path to becoming a shaman.
The Not-Doings were inspired by the lives of insects, in particular wasps nests made of natural paper mâché and the metamorphic forms of chrysalises familiar from childhood. Their ambiguity and human scale introduce a sense of the uncanny. They are waiting to emerge, hovering on the threshold of becoming something else. They have been exhibited in various locations in London and Oxford, including the Royal Festival Hall where they were shown as part of Pestival, a science-art collaboration on the theme of insects.
This work uses industrial and domestic materials in an endeavour to "fix" dead trees. It is an absurdly painstaking attempt to breath life into their rigid branches. The construction of animal-like joints and spines enables them to twist and turn, introducing energy and flexibility.
On 1st March 2008, I made a journey in the company of friends and family. We travelled on foot from Summertown in North Oxford, five miles eastwards to Headington, taking an old sofa with us.
Our journey followed a route that existed in the 1940s, taking cycle paths and tracks and crossing roads, fields, and even a river. At the site of the old Marston ferry, we rowed the sofa across the Cherwell in a leaky wooden dinghy. Our journey commemorates the life of Peggy Oates and is recorded in this video.
