LIFT YOUR SKINNY FISTS LIKE ANTENNAS TO HEAVEN

Bath Spa Library Commission Prize, 2025.

Book, Limewood. 51 x 51cm

I was given free rein to produce an art object further to being selected for the prize. I wanted to do something that reflected the context, something book related. I had inherited a copy of Mrs Beeton's book of Cookery and Household Management. In that doorstop, published in 1961, Mrs Beeton states that monkeys and bush babies were increasing in popularity as pets. People were bored of cats and dogs. I combined that information with the bush babies in the paintings of Raqib Shaw, whose painting The Perseverant Prophet reflected the state sponsored destruction of books, as has happened in Gaza, Srinagar and Jaffna. The deliberate destruction of history and culture. 

My piece speaks to caution relating to the provenance of information. The carved animals inquire of their promised futures, their autonomy, ghostly predictions, echoing the precarity of culture and civilisation. Global conflagration seems to be heading our way. 

The title is borrowed from the second album by Godspeed You! Black Emperor.