Here Beneath Our Feet 

A series of footprints, centred around a posthole, are presented, cast in a rectangular lead slab. The impressions of the three individuals’ feet record an unpalatable facet of a past existence.

I was interested in the parallels between archaeologists digging backward into human history and the artist digging deeper into the human condition; both can often come face to face with an unpleasant reality.

The work was inspired by the Vindolanda tablets which are held in The British Museum. These wooden Roman notecards, found in a Roman rubbish dump outside the walls of a fort, carry the kind of everyday inanities (such as birthday party invitations and orders for new underpants) which seem to bring their authors closer to us. The tablets were however written within the context of a regime based upon the practice of slavery and the threat of punishment by death. The artwork proposes an archaeological discovery with a different, more harsh, narrative than those of the tablets.

Whilst the event presented may be far in the past, the practices continue to this day with 37 countries retaining the death penalty. We are, nevertheless, able to continue with our own ordinary lives in very much the same way as the free occupants of the Vindolanda Fort.

Related Works: The Land Bridge Project