Ripple by Helen Cammock
“I think of water and its role in the movement of bodies. Ripples carry water, and air. They are a way to understand past action and decision effects, as they move through time. A ripple holds both absence and presence, and is not a ripple without both.”
A ripple crosses geographical and historical time.
A ripple allows us to touch generational experiences although what we can see, hear and touch may be lessened as it expands over time, which requires greater attention.
A ripple can move between past and present, carrying many voices and stories of survival and resistance. It bears witness, and so can we.
Ripple is a large-scale, circular stone structure, representing the form and idea of a ripple. It's designed as a space to enter, discovering texts that speak to you as you move around. Ripple is a place to reflect and think, to discuss and connect.
There is a middle, central space with a bench containing a 5 metre stone column – the epicentre. Outside the main memorial space, there are ripple "tail ends" for people to sit or lean. Texts are engraved in the stone walls and inlaid with Sapele (West African hardwood).
Satellite artwork and engagement
I have proposed satellite works across a number of London's parks and public spaces. Each stone will have text inlaid in Sapele wood. Some will be circular walls with a bench, others, small columns.
Each site is suggested for its historical relevance and nearby communities. These communities, as well as visitors to the main memorial and Museum of London Docklands, are also invited to join in a workshop programme around ideas of freedom, and what it means to have this curtailed.
These workshops will have various activities, focusing on creating poetic texts for display in a bespoke cabinet at the museum. This rolling text-works exhibition made by participants, will in turn create a cross-London dialogue network as part of a citywide workshop programme.
Texts
The texts sit on each wall, and down the central column – like text drawings, each with different layouts.
Outer wall 1
A chorus floats on water, wayward spirals catch on rock
Inner wall 1
To sit amongst your echoes
To walk a second line
We dance between the shadows
With nowhere left to hide
Outer wall 2
And somehow break through
Chain cold soundings
We might feel the swell
Of home
Inner wall 2
Awakened from another's story
Somehow crossing time
Inner wall 2
To learn to dance with fireflies
First accept the dark
Column
And here it sits, beneath the surface of skin
Meet the artist: Helen Cammock
Helen Cammock is an interdisciplinary artist, living and working in Wales and London. Through her practice, she examines mainstream historical and contemporary Blackness, womanhood, oppression, resistance, wealth, power, poverty and vulnerability narratives.
Her works often cut across time and geography, layering multiple voices while investigating the cyclical nature of history via visual and aural assemblages.
In 2017, Cammock won the Max Mara Art Prize for Women, and in 2019 was a joint Turner Prize recipient. She currently holds the Paul Hamlyn Awards for Artists.
Selected solo exhibitions include:
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On WindTides, The Line, London 2024
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Bass Notes and SiteLines, Amant, Brooklyn 2023
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I Will Keep My Soul, Art + Practice, Los Angeles 2023
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They Call it Idlewild, Oakville Galleries, Ontario 2023
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Behind the eye is the promise of rain, Kestner Gesellschaft, Germany 2022
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Radio Ballads, Serpentine Galleries, London 2022 (group show)
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Art on the Underground poster and tube map cover commission, London 2022
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Concrete Feathers Porcelain Tacks, The Photographer’s Gallery, London 2021
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The Long Note, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin 2019
Helen Cammock is represented by Kate MacGarry.
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