That Which Has Become Black (Page: 1/2)
2008
12 Digital Photographs
These photographs are documents of an ongoing work suggested by Richard Jefferies’ 1885 novel, After London, or, Wild England, the inspiration, also, of the exhibition ‘Sudden White (after London)’ curated by Mark Beasley at Burlington Gardens, for which they were made. The opening chapter, ‘The Great Forest’, describes a future England that has radically changed, much of the south of the country covered in a great lake, and the capital an inaccessible and poisonous swamp; it is this first chapter, to be published separately as an artists’ book, for which these photographs were created by way of illustration.
The photographs show a selection of small pots, made from copies of the Daily Mail, in which Wormwood (Artemesia absinthium) seeds have been sown. Although used for medicinal purposes, Wormwood is extremely bitter, and is related to the Apocalypse through its appearance in the Book of Revelations (8:10–11): ‘And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of
The photographs show a selection of small pots, made from copies of the Daily Mail, in which Wormwood (Artemesia absinthium) seeds have been sown. Although used for medicinal purposes, Wormwood is extremely bitter, and is related to the Apocalypse through its appearance in the Book of Revelations (8:10–11): ‘And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of