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The Requiem Series

The Requiem Series was based on the events of September 11th. In order to try and understand the loss of life, I burnt 3,533 matches, the estimated death toll when I began the work in December 2001. The resulting collection of works formed the basis for my degree show.

Although 3,533 (Requiem), the first piece in the series, was based on the terrorist attacks on America, the work acquired a broader focus on death, mourning and ritual as the series progressed.

The burnt matches were initially placed in a glass bowl before being laid out in rows on a table.Burnt matches sitting on thermal paper.I could only lay out about a third of the matches on this table. Later I did an installation where all the matches were laid out on the floor on a roll of white paper.When the matches were laid out, they formed a pattern that suggested DNA analysis.'Cairn' was a one-off performance about grief and loss during which I sang nursery rythmes whilst counting and cradling small pebbles. The image is slightly blurred because I was behind a fabric screen.Occasionally the lit matches got a bit close to the paper and burnt it slightly. Fortunately the Health and Safety department never found out about this project!I experimented with different techniques of drawing with the matches. This drawing was made by holding the lit matches near the paper.Performing ‘3,533 (Requiem)’ in the gallery at college in December 2001. Burning all the matches took most of a week.After I’d exhibited the matches for a second time, I decided to burn them down further to make charcoal. Burning the matches fully was surprisingly hard, just setting fire to them didn’t work and in the end we had to use a blow torch.After the matches were fully burnt down into charcoal I ground them down with a mortar and pestle to make the dust that I used for the final part of the project.The matches were burnt down into charcoal in a pyrex glass bowl, a process which coated the bowl in soot. Removing the matches to grind them down into dust left scratched soot drawings on the glass.'Shadow Breath' from my degree show, June 2002. These dust drawings were made by securing burnt matches to the wall, blowing the charcoal dust made from the ground-up matches over them and then removing the matches to leave the outlines.“We are but dust and shadow” - HoraceTwo large thermal drawings hanging in the space.I made drawings by placing the hot matches on thermal paper.

Further works from this series can be seen on The Requiem Flickr page.

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