My son was born in Newcastle 50 years ago. He went to Durham University 30 years ago. My mother came from the Darlington area, over 100 years ago. I would like to connect with Darlington.
I wish to make a wooden postcard / book series about Darlington. In the context of high rates of child poverty in Doncaster and water poverty which concerns water polluted with nano-plastics or other contaminants. Postcard senders are sourced from Family Hubs and Gingerbread; finding women to write as the voice of children and those not yet born. Speaking about the disenfranchisement of the poor, silent subjects who have no voice in society. The wooden postcards are sent to the Elected Mayor of Doncaster, or to others for forwarding to the Elected Mayor, so enriching the life of receivers. With messages about the next generation in Darlington. These are part of the 3.5 billion new-borns to be born worldwide between 2025 and 2050. The mayor collects together wooden postcards, so making a wooden book. For exhibition in a library. Which also becomes an e-book. As part of a world mayor project. Which informs the cultural quarter.
For a second wooden book other artists may collaborate, contributing poems and drawings about the next generation for inclusion in the edition. This also progresses into an e-book. Intending to enrich arts and culture in Darlington also by inviting artists to perform poetry, dance, or express my themes in their artistic style.
Wooden books and postcards are a vehicle for abundant, creative arts in the heritage area. Artists may develop my themes further after my project finishes.
Pollution by nano-plastics is a global issue, having ecological and economic consequences; 50-75 trillion micro-and-nano-pieces of plastic are estimated to lie in oceans (Aransiola). Female reproductive systems can face serious disorders and abnormalities under the influence of environmental pollutants, such as nano-plastics (Balali). Nano-plastics are found in wombs and semen (Montano).
100,000 nano-plastic pieces may fit across a human hair. Nano-plastic is invisible, so metaphor is needed to visualise. Micro-plastics are bigger than nano-plastics. This project is about literacy, and social art.
Darlington Underwater Tales in postcards and books relate to humans who live underwater. These humans are found in wombs. These wombs for humans may be natural or artificial. Artificial wombs are a coming technology. Plastic is technology and artificial. With nano-plastics the artificial realm invades the realm of human lives, inside and outside the womb.
Yet these underwater stories also concern the pollution of water. So, these stories relate to pollution invading the realm of water, on which clean water Darlington relies. By which reliance Darlington connects to the sea, and the source of rain, that fills reservoirs.
Wooden books present a hybrid story. A narrative of printmaking, painting images, poetry, prose, and text. The poetry is about the paintings.
The voice in the stories is that of those not yet born, the silent subject, the human in the womb at any stage of gestation. Who lives underwater and is named the Body to differentiate this human from the mother’s body. The Body is human, a nano-human at conception, a micro-human during gestation and a human just before birth. The voice also is of the silent subjects that are water life that live underwater. Rich seams for art await.
I am an artist researcher, using original painting and poetry to foreground the human condition underwater. We all once lived underwater in the womb. My work discusses artificial wombs, natural wombs, rising sea levels, nano-plastic pollution of these, and nano-pollution of food and the wider water environment. These matters signal cultural change as did the age of steam once alter life in Darlington. I engage with ecologies, heritage, curating and new concepts of public space. These ecologies are water ecologies whereby oceans are not just ‘oceans’, but primordial water forms, and wombs for marine life; these topics juxtaposed with human wombs, natural or artificial, and human primordial womb water; these in turn related to water in the form of seas, lakes, rivers, and humans. Water and womb ecologies are conjoined. This makes for a creative approach to education and an artistic interpretation of space. Womb space is related to ocean space. Wombs are often less than 80cms in length, the birth canal 20cms wide and as Rohling observes rising sea levels of 20-80cms may flood coastal cities. Heritage is found in cities, coastal or otherwise, and culture. My paintings have no right way up for curating, so creating new curating dialogues. New public space may be found in the realm of wooden postcards used to send messages, and in the space of Doncaster’s matrilineal connections, such as mine. The relationship between wooden postcard sender and receiver is a realm of public space while the wooden postcard is in transit, and private space thereafter, unless the wooden postcard is exhibited. The 3.5 billion new-borns arriving globally between 2025 and 2050 create new conceptual space. This space private in the womb, yet public later. Additional conceptual space is the 17.5 billion litres of womb water occupied by these 3.5 billion. Wooden postcards contain holes, through which may be threaded picture cord or textile. Allowing with this addition a wooden postcard to be hung on a wall. Although such hanging additions should not be used with wooden postcards intended for posting. Until their postal journey is complete. My Tate Paper discusses wooden postcards.
BA Fine Art, MA Fine and Applied Art, University of Hertfordshire
I am involved art and science creative projects for Climanosco. As a board member, artist and as a reviewer of scientific manuscripts.
Wooden postcards offer self-created opportunities.
As part of my MA I installed a 3000 x 500 cm relief sculpture in cast iron and steel wire on the walls of Luton Hoo Walled Garden. This is a Capability Brown Garden. The walls are protected by conservation orders. I used existing hooks and eyes to thread the steel wire and I hung my cast iron off that wire. Thereby obeying the conservation order.
The University of Hertfordshire purchased one of my degree pieces.
2002 Leisure Painter, December 2002.
2022 I Remember Water, Digital Exhibition, World Water Museum Global Network, IT/NL.
2023 New York Underwater, Reflections of an Eco artist, PT.
And others.
MANGO digital artist residency which is linked to the UN Decade of the Oceans.
Email: cwil754033@aol.com
Address: 10 Gainsborough Avenue, St Albans, Herts, AL1 4NL, GB
Local Authority: St Albans District Council
