This time two years ago we were digging through the industrial bins of the Boeing and Airbus factories in Saint Nazaire, on the east coast of France, in an attempt to find scrap material, prototypes, sections of wing, propeller blades. Collecting the mechanisms and material which overspill industries such as construction, aviation, communication; the sculptures mimic the way that plants trace the sun across the sky, by adapting the same orientation system as used on the Parker solar probe* (launched in 2018).

*[The left solar panel is the left eye, the right panel right eye , and the two shades two hands, shielding the eyes. If the left eye sees the sun from behind the hand, it turns the motor right, if the right eye sees the sun from behind the hand, it turns motor left, and through this is orientated towards the sun.]

Using the solar cells as sensors (instead of accumulators), they hold the same stance as other tools for measurement & orientation: light meters, weather vanes; but these for seeking sunlight. Like all measuring & forecasting equipment through the last year, it's sensitivity is warped (most now are defunct / petrified / electrically shorted) and they exist as scarecrows or signers or sirens. Their material haunted by the plastic and lithium and other key compounds of the renewable industries that harvests the technology deposited behind space and military progression. They land as fallen satellites, various prototype stagings, left behind, for some future historic maquettes and models.

Heliotropics, series of 5:

3 floor based (60 x 100 x 120cm)

2 wall / glass mounted (60 x 60 x 60cm)

(solar cells, motor, wiring, sticks, glue, mesh, thread & custom tripod (painted steel & chain), suction mounts and levels) 



Casting The Runes, curated by Arthur Poujois 

+ in collaboration with Harlesden High Street and Underground Flower 



108 Fleet Street, London 

June 2021