The nefarious title of the work Volatile Compounds (The Conspiracy) (2024) invites us to imagine a conversation between two bronze fingers which, like the hands, are anthropoid symbols. Bronze is used in numerous pieces in my work. This alloy has been chosen because it primarily consists of copper, whose industrial history I came across on my first visit to the Sedgwick Museum. The transoceanic phenomenon of copper exploitation began in the earlier part of the 19th Century in the United Kingdom, when smelting technology in the country started to use coal-fired furnaces, increasing the capacity and need to extract copper worldwide.Today, copper mining is still leaving its destructive marks on both the environment and the health of its workers and neighbouring mining populations.
Image: Jules Lister