Surrender

Surrender 2013

Bamboo poles, plastic plumbing pipe, secondhand cotton sheets, thread

Total work H: 290cm W: 290cm D: 290cm

Fabricated from second hand cotton bed sheets each flag is patched together from pieces of sheet to create variations on an abstract grid. The flags are 60cm wide, 170cm long and supported by bamboo poles which are 290cm tall.

The metaphor of war is frequently used by politicians to speak about perceived societal challenges; the war on drugs, war on poverty, war on terror etc. and globally we still act as if plunderer s in an invading army in relation to the environment scaring it with open cut mines, denuding large swathes of land through clear felling and poisoning the air and water in our attempt to produce more stuff.

The impact of actual warfare on the environment is often catastrophic; land mines, pollution, denuded landscapes and loss of habitat.

The title of the work refers to the military meaning of a white flag namely yielding or laying down of arms in battle and can be read as a call on behalf of the environment to end our assault on it and call a truce acknowledging that a fight with nature is one we can never win.

Surrender can also be read on a spiritual level, flags are emblematic of breath and the spirit and in some cultures they are used to transmit prayers; this work is my prayer for the earth.

We are all subject to natural forces a flag surrenders to the forces of the wind and we succumb to sleep and death.

The movements of the flags embody the changing atmospheric conditions; light and shadow are captured on their surface whilst the sound of the fluttering and flapping fabric amplifies the sensory nature of the work.