The Whitehead Project

A. N. Whitehead’s philosophy of prehension and his radical notion of feeling were described in his book 'Process and Reality' (1929). It states that perception is not a second hand representation of the world, but is a concrete manifestation of an occasion’s relational engagement with reality. Therefore there is also not real distinction between organic and inorganic feeling in type. Whitehead and Hill made bricks in Cwmbran between 1925 and the 1970’s. My house is made of these bricks and I discovered this whilst reading A. N. Whitehead in 2016. Rather than impose my will on the brick, or exploit the brick to create an Artwork that is more about me, this project involved a conversation with the brick as an equal. This involved careful observation of the brick's details, conversations on it's impact on us, as well as its history in industrial and geological time frames. The project is ongoing and has involved investigations into themes as wide ranging as Archaeology, clay, pigment, Geology and Philosophy.