This body of work is the culmination of a year and three months of reflection and research, which took place mainly at my studio and exhibition space, Glisk, in Burntisland, Fife. At the end of the period of working, I created an exhibition from what I had been doing, which was an interesting process in itself. The exhibition is running from September 21 to October 01 2023.

The central themes are relationally, our complex entanglement with the more-than-human world, and the neurodiversity paradigm as a standpoint of social justice, which stands alongside other movements for a future of abundance and diversity. The creation of the work was rooted in readings and engagement with thinkers, artists and poets about neurodiversity, ecology and social justice. Listening to music played a profound role in helping to direct and inspire the gestural, stimmy movements needed to create the works.

The title comes from the introduction to an interview between Edouard Glissant, the Martinique philosopher and poet, and Hans Ulrich Obrist:

“These archipelagos must encounter each other because, across their many islands, interdependence and difference co-exist – and, in this way, they carry the energy that is necessary for our whole globe, our whole world. We might currently believe that this energy derives from military and economic force, but this is not so. It lies in the ideas and poetics of how we organise the world…They open us to a sea of wandering: to ambiguity, to fragility, to drifting, which is not the same as futility.“