Postscript (Work in Progress)
2023
The title of this work is borrowed from Seamus Heaney’s poem Postscript.
I first left Essex in 2014 to pursue my undergraduate degree and spent the next seven years studying, moving, and travelling in search of people just like myself. For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt like the odd one out growing up in a place so absorbed in partying and ‘glam’ culture..
Moving to Belfast, I found myself making work around the concept of “Rewilding” and ended up in the midst of an environmental uprising with the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion. My involvement in the movement peaked during the heart-breaking destruction of the biodiverse wetland, Lough Beg, home of the migrating whooper swan. Heaney’s words from his poem “Postscript” accompanied me along this journey
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Returning to homeplace of Essex I became immersed in the notion of “Belonging” guided by this poem I set out to explore my homeland, its landscape and culture, in particular my love for the natural world. The work navigates my personal journey of environmental activism on my return to Essex, a journey that connects me with like-minded people.
It delves into themes of personal identity, nature and the culture that surrounds me. It is a work in progress.
Postscript by Seamus Heaney, from The Spirit Level, 1996
And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.