"Inspired by research trips to Chernobyl, Pripyat, Hiroshima, and Sellafield Nuclear site, “The Future’s Forgotten Rituals” is my most recent ongoing body of work exploring a series of fictitious folk communities that hang onto life 900 years after a global mass extinction. A worldwide nuclear meltdown and environmental disaster have regressed humanity into a new dark age. Sea levels have risen catastrophically, most animal species are extinct and much of the land is poisoned. Humans hang onto life, collecting photographs and artefacts dug up from the ground. Regarded as “Sacred Objects”, humans use them to perform mask-wearing rituals and ceremonies that echo a naïve vision of the world’s lost history.
The works I have submitted for the broadside are tinted photo-etchings and aquatints of Chernobyl, Pripyat and Hiroshima. These prints have been dug up from the earth and speak of technology lost to a second dark-age. These images are used in rituals (performance pieces) that summon various spirits. "