On the 12 July 2016 I reached the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. And a year today I was on my way to Finisterra, staying at a private albergue in the hamlet of Santa Marina, enjoying a lentil stew.
The year has been a living response to my journey; I catch myself walking up escalators on the tube using the same measured breathing pattern and pace I engaged to climb steep hills; the conscious change of speed between gradients. I approach tasks more slowly and expect them to take as long as they take.
It has taken a while to make work about the experience, but it has unfolded as the year has slipped by. The first piece was entitled ‘Washed in Other Waters’ and was made for the Porthleven Fisherman’s Institute Public Auction to raise funds for a renovation project. The piece was a painting; water from the End of the Earth painted onto a piece of timber baulk that once formed the inner-harbour defenses, but was smashed by catastrophic storms in 2015.
In Other Waters (video)
SEA WELL was shown as St James’s Church Piccadilly.
I transferred the two waters (sea and well waters) I collected at the End of the Earth from their Spanish plastic bottles into laser etched glass chemical reagent bottles; denoting their power to effect change.
Censing was installed in early June 2017 and was made was made in response to the giant censer in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, ‘El Botofumerio’, which weighs 80kg, carries a load of 40 kg of charcoal and incense and takes 5 men to haul up and swing high over the heads of the of amazed Pilgrims. Mine was less ambitious.
Censing was suspended from a majestic Horse Chestnut tree and installed for 2 days as part of the London Open Squares and Gardens Scheme.
Censer (steel, stainless steel, rope and fixings) 800mm diameter x 250mm