Wighton26: undercurrent
I’m delighted to have work in undercurrent - this year’s North Norfolk Exhibition Project show at Wighton.
Titled “I’m sure the blackberries come earlier every year”, my work for the exhibition explores the way the human-made climate crisis is reshaping the region through disrupting phenology (the timing of seasonal activity in ecosystems).
A more subtle ‘undercurrent’ of change than more dramatic climate impacts such as coastal erosion, sea level rise, floods and fires, the shifting of seasonal markers nevertheless may have a dramatic effect on our environment and the plants and animals of our ecosystems. If interacting species, such as predator and prey or plant and pollinator, shift their life cycle timings in a way that becomes unsynchronised, this mismatch may lead to, for example, flowers not being pollinated or lack of food for a particular bird or caterpillar, and these effects will ripple out into the wider ecosystem.
This of course has potential consequences for humans in terms of practical issues like food production. It also has a more of an intangible, unsettling quality as our markers of time shapeshift and blur. Even if we’re not entirely sure why, there is something disquieting about heatwaves in May, blossom in November, hailstorms in June.
I have been documenting the area around Wighton through photography, from winter through to the height of summer. My final piece will weave together images from the different seasons, blending and overlapping in a multiple exposure cyanotype toned with local plants including blackberry leaf. Blurring the boundaries of those markers of time that we perhaps take for granted, and, I hope, opening up a conversation about the importance of the seasons and our place within them.
Work in progress - multiple exposure cyanotype toned with blackberry leaf and oak gall.
Exhibition details:
undercurrent
Curated by Chris Bailkoski
All Saints Church, Wighton, Norfolk
1st July: Private View from 4pm (all welcome)
2nd July - 2nd August: Exhibition continues