Washing Hands
About twenty years ago I met an Irish girl. She had grown up in the countryside on a farm and, when she told me about her childhood, it sounded like…
Clean Unclean
Ignaz Semmelweis and Anthropogenic Global Warming
Mortality rates in mothers from childbirth in Europe were shockingly high during the mid-19th century. Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician working in the General Hospital of Vienna, was curious as…
Binbag, Pavement Tree, Chainlink Fence
Dandelions poking through a chainlink fence; brambles sprouting from an unknown corner; a binbag gashed open, spewing out its contents; scattered leaves; a dead fly. Mimei Thompson paints the everyday…
Red Snow
Albedo is the fraction of solar energy reflected from the Earth back into space. The word stems from Latin and means whiteness. Ice, with snow on top of it, has…
Clearing and Cleaning
Through time, and with use, objects become imbued with memories. To tidy them away is to erase the past. Over the past few months, artist John Carroll has been making…
Connswater
Our river wasn’t a clean river, a mountain stream, a babbling brook, or a silver girl. It was a filthy river, a city river, forsaken, neglected. Long gone, the…
Inca Doves
Is it odd to say I thought of you as I pulled a dead dove from the swimming pool? Spine up to God, floating lightly with its bright beak…
Scenes from an Execution Variations
Few things are as messy as war. Cause and effect, right and wrong: our foundational truths unravel in the face of violence and bloodshed. This has not always been the…
you are and onto
neither of you nor not this in stance beside congruities one thing not a way …
Bitumen and Pork
Four busts and an image of creation. BITUMEN AND PORK was an installation to mark the post-performance cabaret of FEAST, a work by theatre company Clout at Battersea Arts Centre…
Soap / Eternity / Rendering
INSTRUCTIONS ON A BAR OF NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY SOAP Do what you want, live how you want. Get it behind your ears and all over the skin…