𝔗𝔥𝔢𝔢 𝔄𝔯𝔱𝔢 𝔬𝔳 𝔚𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔅𝔢𝔞𝔲𝔪𝔬𝔫𝔱

Not long after I had made my previous piece These Letters Truly Haunt us, I was confronted with a reassessment of my Personal Independence Payment from the Department of Work and Pensions and found myself with a letter on my doorstep. Using a red ballpoint pen I covered the unopened envelope in apotropaic marks – symbols used in historical folk magic to create wards of protection, often found carved into the structure of old houses and churches across Britain, and surrounded the letter in a ring of salt where it lay on my doorstep. I then began a lengthy ritual of banishing and protection which I documented with these photographs. The work is an act of protective magic in its ritual form, but the photographs themselves speak of the absurdity of the benefits system in the UK. The bureaucracy that those who have disabilities and chronic illnesses need to navigate is maddening. As it drives me towards an otherness, I embrace the transgressive sorcery that is at home within that irrational and marginal Other.