Synopsis:

 

 

A kilometre above the low-lying flats of Cambridgeshire

I launched myself into the sky.

With a rush of air I was released from the aircraft,

pulled to the slipstream and freed into space;

a transient shape in the timeless ethereal world.

Dropping to the distance; fabric fluttered, I was pulled

upright, suspended under an air-filled canopy.

Through tranquil clouds I drifted down; down towards a

patchwork veneer and the fossil rich clay that lay beneath.

Clay informs my practice. With its pliant yielding strata it is

the embodiment of time, the relic of a distant age,

widespread beneath us, but concealed from view. For the

last 12 years I have travelled hundreds of kilometres

over land and sea to explore and reveal its hidden strata.

In my video Touching Earth I used the gravitational force of

the earth itself to draw me down towards the clay.

The work involved learning how to jump from an aircraft and

parachute down to earth.

After studying geological maps to identify the underlying

strata of 23 parachute drop zones in the UK, the low-lying

landscape of Cambridgeshire was singled out for its rich

bedrock of Ampthill Clay.

This clay, in which I discovered an early oyster, was formed

150 million years ago at the bottom of an ancient sea.