I was here
Wells Cathedral Site Specific Installation. 2024
Someone, once, carved the words ‘I Was Here’ into the stones of the north transept of the cathedral. The walls of this ancient place bear the marks of countless lives, each stone scored with the chisel marks of unnamed medieval masons; dates and witch marks and initials subverting the power and prestige of ancient tombs. These ephemeral marks, revealed by light, are statements of presence; here, in this place, stood people whose existence might otherwise remain without physical trace.
This work aims to illuminate these memories and traces, these glimpsed stories, scratched and scored into the stones of the cathedral.
Semi opaque porcelain slabs and beeswax dipped paper formed from casts, prints, photographs and marks taken from, or responding to, the walls of the cathedral.
The books are sited along the stone wall which forms a divide between the altar and the lady chapel. This site changes and adapts throughout the day; directly illuminated at dawn, lit obliquely through the windows of the south transept at noon, darkening as the sun reaches the west. Marks and images contained within the pages of the books, and scratched onto the wall itself, are revealed by light. What is able to be seen and what is cast in shadow will transform the installation; ephemeral marks and scratches made visible, or diminished.
Sitting propped against the wall, the installation has a sense of almost domestic functionality, responding as much to the presence of stacked bibles in the lady chapel opposite, as the soaring vastness of the cathedral glimpsed behind the wall. The stone seating running along the bottom of the wall creates a contemplative space in which to respond to the ephemeral traces contained within these books.