Volta do Mar / Return from the Sea
Volta do Mar (2024)
4K, Stereo, 1.78 aspect ratio.
Volta do Mar references a navigational technique perfected by the Portuguese during the Age of Discovery in the 15th century. Literally translated as “to return from the sea,” this technique harnesses the westerlies, or ‘anti-trade winds,’ to navigate ships back from the Caribbean and America to Europe. Here, it serves as a metaphor to reconsider our relationship to place, memory, history, and empire.
Filmed over two years in the artist’s birthplace of Cumbria, the work traces the dark history of Whitehaven, raising questions about the artist’s own complicity as a white British artist.
Through movement, ritual, gesture, and objects, the artist invites us to meditate on our interwoven histories in a reparative gesture—a lament towards the healing of the land.
The film is complemented by vocals and flute composed by acclaimed American jazz artist Ruth Naomi Floyd, whose great-great-grandmother was an enslaved African in America.
‘Broken Punch Bowls’ (2022), porcelain bowls hand thrown by Rachel Ho, hand painted by artist (2023).
‘Volta do Mar’ Limited edition screen print, printed by hand on Somerset Satin White Paper, 56 x 76 cm, 300gsm, 100% cotton paper, acid free (2023)
Reupholstered Georgian chair, printed on calico (2024)
For ‘Broken punch bowls’ I worked together with ceramic artist Rachel Ho. The shape of the bowls echo sugar boiling coppers found on Plantations across the Southern USA & Caribbean and also reference English Spode blue Italian Ware (c1816). My hand painted images give voice to historic and contemporary socio-political events - from John Lowther (who founded the port of Whitehaven in the 17th century and was pivotal in the export of coal), to the 18th century lighthouse, an Antiguan Windmill (rum was imported from Antigua into Whitehaven to sell at Jefferson’s Rum Shop), to English Channel crossings, surveillance and the hostile environment - making links between immigration, politics, colonialism, empire, memory, object and place.
‘Transatlantic chairs’ is a series of two re-upholstered Georgian chairs. The repeat pattern print references Spode Blue and White ceramic ware and incorporates images related to the colonial history of West Cumbria embedding historical and contemporary subjects within a traditional tile pattern. Images include a slave trader (plantation owner) with pipe (Whitehaven important Tobacco from Virginia and Maryland), CCTV cameras - referencing the UK’s hostile environment and sugar cane (imported into Whitehaven from Antigua.)
