Industrial Revolution: the heritage of everything, Arsenophobia

Year: 2016 -  2019
Material: copper, vitreous enamel, spray paint and wood
Size: 24 x 24 x 40 cm
Installation size: 70 x 70 sq cm
 
This installation comprises three Victoria sponge cakes with Victorian tile motifs. Each cake symbolises three major social issues of the Industrial Revolution era and ongoing. Each piece has graffitied words which state a conclusive viewpoint on those issues as well as commenting on our condition / living within an inherited Victorian city. Inspired by the Victorian usage of deadly substrate arsenic, which provided a vibrant green colour to many consumer products causing many deaths alongside increased sales. In the modern world, obvious poisons are regulated but the question remains whether today’s artificial additives, chemicals and synthetics are less harmful over time? The graffiti, ‘Non Marte Sed Arte (Not by War but by Art)’ was coined by James Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam hammer, in 1839 and is an inversion of his own family motto: ‘Non Arte Sed Marte’.