The Beating of Wings
Over the last year I have been attempting to make sense of life through my garden, looking for signs and meaning in my imagery. I recently moved to Stroud, married my partner, and began trying to start a family. Unfortunately, we experienced a chemical pregnancy followed by a Silent Miscarriage at 12 weeks. My art has become a means to understand and process these changes.
The camera became a tool to speak to the garden, to learn its secrets and disclose my own. In an attempt to get to know the garden, I asked it questions and it asked questions back.
The project consists of both digital and analogue photography, and alternative processes. Many of the images have been created with 35mm film, developed at home using ivy from the garden. Initially an attempt to lessen my environmental impact, the process became a way to connect with the garden and the slow therapeutic nature of the process gave me time to reflect. Some images are macro shots of petri dishes with pond water from the garden, taken through a microscope using an iPhone, or made with an automatic garden spy camera to uncover hidden worlds. A series of photopolymer etchings have been produced from the project, a process chosen for its physicality that became a meditative experience for me.
The work was made intuitively and will remain ongoing. As life unfolded, I would return to the images seeking new meanings and messages I may have missed, and the work started to feel prophetic. Just days before my pregnancy tests turned negative and we experienced the chemical pregnancy, a dead Dragonfly appeared on my doorstep, a symbol for the death of a loved one. During my next pregnancy, more and more of the imagery began to feature symbols of conception and birth.
When I was told my baby no longer had a heartbeat, The Beating of Wings adopted a new significance. Miscarriage is a common, but often isolating experience and a painful and rarely openly discussed topic. I hope that by being vulnerable and sharing the work, I will help others to feel seen or to help others feel comfortable to share their own experiences.
This work is a cryptic accumulation of my conversation with the garden. You don’t need to know what was said, only that we spoke.