Multiple exposure cyanotypes toned with blackberry leaf and oak gall.

Created for and exhibited at Undercurrent - Wighton, Norfolk, July-Aug 2026

“In every living thing there ticks a clock... Once, these rhythms comforted and consoled, orchestrating innumerable ecological relationships and offering glimpses of the greater wheels within which our small lives turn. But as climate breakdown takes hold, more and more species are struggling to keep time as they once did. Biological clocks that evolved an exact synchronization over millions of years are falling out of sync: the beat does not fall where it should; syncopation becomes dissonance.”

- From Wild Clocks by David Farrier, Emergence Magazine Vol. 5: Time.

‘“I’m sure the blackberries come earlier every year” reflects upon the impact of the climate crisis on 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 serious 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.

For the project I documented the area around Wighton through photography, from winter through to the height of summer. The final triptych weaves together images from the different seasons, blending and overlapping in a multiple exposure cyanotype toned with local blackberry leaf and oak gall. Through creating a visual depiction of the blurring of the seasons’ boundaries, and those markers of time that we perhaps take for granted, I hope the work will open up a conversation about the importance of the seasons and our place within them.

That this work was exhibited during a summer of drought, relentless heatwaves and wildfires throughout the UK is particularly poignant.

This work was created for and exhibited at Undercurrent, curated by Chris Bailkoski, All Saints Church, Wighton, Norfolk, 2nd July - 2nd August 2026.