Time is a Healer is a new body of work responding to ideas around loss through war and conflict and inherited trauma. The ideas have come from my own personal experiences and witnessed through my own family (more about this in a previous blog post here ). The work will be exhibited as part of the Neither Use Nor Ornament Exhibition at Ovada, Oxford opening on March 30th
Time is a Healer consists of 3 clocks and a series of 5 photographs mounted in lead frames.
The first, and the original from my collection of empty clocks, is a victorian slate mantel clock. The clock’s broken top has been repaired to reference Japanese Kintsugi technique, but rather than using gold leaf for the repair I have used lead.
The space where the clock’s mechanism would be housed has been filled with my own hair (more about this in another blog post)
My research in the past has included the material culture surrounding death and bereavement and amongst my archive I have a memento mori; a brooch made from woven hair and worn as a reminder of a lost loved one and also of one’s own mortality. Using my own hair is quite literally a physical manifestation (through the DNA present in the hair follicles) of my connection with the people that my work for NUNO represents.