The Museum of the Vibrant Collector, 2023

metal drawers, fossils, flint, sand, earth, Carex pendula, water, string, AI generated scientific terms, paper and ink, animation This work looks at how we look at things. It interrogates the western tradition of scientific enquiry and its capitalist and colonialist mindset; the futility of trying to understand any one part of a system in isolation; our sense of entitlement and ownership of natural resources. Increasingly scientific enquiry recognises and studies the interconnectedness of the biosphere and our influence within it; but action and change are held back by a cultural and political conservatism and attachment to the past. The Museum of the Vibrant Collector embraces the chaotic, messy beauty of the Earth’s processes and deep timeframe. includes: The Animated Museum of the Vibrant Collector, 2023, 2mins 30 Stop-motion and drawn animation, shot on location at The Grange, with support of Groundwork Gallery and The Grange Projects The animation follows the story of a museum cabinet which awakes in a post-human world. Following a cultural memory it sets about gathering and classifying the world. In the exhibition installation we see the same cabinet fling out its discoveries for our perusal The Ground Beneath Our Feet is the theme of GroundWork’s annual artistic residency and summer exhibition programme established and directed by Veronica Sekules. Taking the subject of Extraction for a third year, the resident artists were asked to consider the immediate locality around Norfolk, in a physical, philosophical, social and economic context. The work was produced in response to field trips, museum visits and immersion in the landscape and resulted in varied and fascinating interpretations by the participating artists