there will be no landing at the lighthouse tomorrow

There will be no landing at the lighthouse tomorrow, 2021

Single channel video and sound

4 minutes 20 seconds

This audio-visual work combines video, field recordings, spoken word and photography that connect moments in Queer and personal histories via shifting landscapes. The Queer body is explored in multiple time periods and landscapes through a lens of restriction, suppression, and personal freedom. 

Photographs from a personal archive of photography dating back to the 1980’s are incorporated including self-portraits taken in Bradford during 1988 which was the year that section 28 was introduced. Video and field recordings were filmed and recorded in Dungeness which was the home of Derek Jarman who fought directly as an artist and activist against the oppression of Section 28.  The spoken word section intertwines a ‘cut up’ reading of Virgina Woolf’s 1927 novel ‘To the Lighthouse’ with new prose inspired by looking out to sea from the desolate landscape of Dungeness.

This cut up reading was done in one take spontaneously picking up on sections of text that stood out. “I feel Love” has particular Queer resonance as do moments which depict mortality and aging such as: 

“When she looked in the glass and saw her hair grey, her cheek sunk, at fifty, she thought…  though to them all there was something in this of the essence of beauty, which called out the manliness in their…hearts…that made them” 

Butchess, beauty and aging are referenced in this transition through time from a young butch dyke to an older self whose butchness, at fifty, feels as though it is eroding. There is a remembrance within the work of a physical past, of different bodies we occupy over time and echoes of multiple perspectives that wash through our experiences. 

Using the literary technique of multiple focalization as used in ‘To the Lighthouse” this collaged audio visual piece moves between multiple sites and perspectives – that of their younger self during a time of erasure of Queer identity, that of Derek Jarman in the form of the view of Dungeness and of Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the Lighthouse’ which was inspired by the view across St Ives Bay. The reference to Jarman and Woolf in relation to the coast brings together a Queer perspective shared by SHARP that focusses on the space of reflection and renewal provided by the sea. This space is without limits and allows for a movement through periods of Queer erasure as well as loss and the aging process. 

Currently being shown at Yorkshire Sculpture Park On Queer Ground exhibition.

PAST lgbtqia+ exhibition SEEN, for Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange Arts Council Collection National Partners Programme .