The Land That Raised Me
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An exhibition born of an experimental workshop series, The Land That Raised Me looks to the hidden relationships between land, body and memory and how we become imbibed by the ecological mechanics and folk stories that inform the land. Magic is kaleidoscopic, it can be described using biology, physics, intuition and storytelling. Regardless of the language you most prefer, TLTRM aims to find the synergetic language of all things in feeling and memory.
The exhibition looks playfully at the fragility of memory, using personal archives to interpret the convergence of biology, metaphysics and storytelling in identity building.
This year I have been interested in my relationship to Essex, how it has informed my identity and how my own storytelling about my childhood has affected my sense of self. I have found myself softening to and reorganising grief through engaging with my grandparents and their contributions to my story.
Fields of Eternity (collage, 2025)
Rita and Ken sit gleefully, hands folded around one another, basking in dappled sun along a much loved walking trail. In life they were both keen ramblers, Rita always braisonly leading the charge.
We’ll meet again (collage, 2025)
Rita guides Ken back to the earth. After my grandma’s departure in 2021, my grandad has slowly waned into a soft and fragile vessel. She has returned to the earth in Wrabness, waiting quietly to meet him again.
On the Shoulders of Giants (collage, 2025)
Here I perch on grandad’s shoulder against the backdrop of Highwoods Country Park. Most of my childhood and adolescence was spent in this woodland. When I was younger, grandad would run up the steep hill behind us with me on his shoulders. It feels hard to recall him this way now in his 90s and unable to stand unaided. As I’ve grown, so has my reverence for my grandparents. They were my sanctuary. They were my storytellers. They were my home when things felt impossibly weighted and fragile.
The altar
At the centre of the exhibition is an altar to my grandmother. Her body, now an oak tree, hangs above a table adorned with materials collected from all over the UK, that harken to her stories of fairies, whimsy, and world building. Acorn tops sit in a bowl with dried flowers as an offering to the fae. The orange peels a nod to her infusing jumpers with oranges as she knitted warm clothes for my mum and uncle. The willow star was made this year at an exhibition celebrating her life and work in Colchester. Tha altar is both container and honour, for her life and the stories she gave me.