The shade can be a beautiful place to hang out when the light’s too strong was an installation I made in 2022 for Zero Gravity – A Landing at The Occasionnale in East Sussex. Set in a summer house, the piece was a memorial to my stepfather, who had died the year before in the next village. Its focus was a locally-sourced apple tree that I placed on a table in the centre surrounded by slip-tied Polaroids fluttering on the ends of colourful velvet ribbons. Each Polaroid held an image of a place that reminded me of him. I carved his favourite phrase ‘Happy Days’ into the tree bark – a wound, like grief, that the tree will continue to grow around. I wanted the work to evoke the feeling of a Clootie Tree and the Pagan practice of tying rags dipped in holy water to trees so as to heal ailments – and hopefully my grief.
