Shimmer Effect

Shimmer Effect brings together a collection of personal objects: a hand-knitted jumper once worn by my late husband, a dome tent, a warp-like structure constructed from fine synthetic thread, and a series of pinned surfaces. Together these elements form an installation that explores memory, attachment, and the fragile ways in which experiences persist through material things.

The work emerged from a close and sustained engagement with objects that carry personal histories. Rather than presenting them as static artefacts, I sought to reactivate them through acts of attention, repair, and transformation. Pins, which recur throughout my practice, become gentle interventions. They pierce, support, and illuminate, operating not as gestures of damage but as gestures of care. Through their presence, worn and seemingly discarded materials acquire a renewed vitality.

A suspended network of reflective threads stretches across the installation, creating a shifting field of light. At Salts Mill, the structure responded to changing daylight filtering through the vast mill windows; later, at the University of Huddersfield, it reflected the movement of rain and light beyond the glass façade of the Richard Steinitz Building. In each setting the work became animated by its surroundings, producing fleeting moments of shimmer that echoed the instability of memory itself.

For its presentation during Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the installation was accompanied by specially commissioned sound works by Gavin Osborn. Sound extended the work's exploration of remembrance, creating an atmosphere in which objects, light, and listening became entangled.

Shimmer Effect considers how material things hold traces of lives lived. Through subtle acts of repair and attention, the installation asks how memory might continue to resonate within objects, long after the moments they once witnessed have passed.