Changing Ideas Award
"Portal" is part of a body of work exploring the concept of ‘navel gazing’ through a contemporary lens. This work is inspired by daily conversations about health, care, bodily anxiety, and political issues relating to healthcare access, as well as body-politics related to food and eating – an aspect equally relevant to conversations around health. The inspiration comes from typical experiences of talking with friends and family about our health concerns, connected to a broader political climate in which questions around access and inequality around healthcare are increasingly urgent.
Since the COVID pandemic, awareness and conversations around individual health have increased greatly; as the international and individual eye turned inward toward an intensity of anxiety about what’s going on inside our bodies, one that many had never experienced before. In conjunction with this, the pandemic also exposed and intensified existing structural pressures on the NHS, a system that remains under immense strain and subject to ongoing political and financial threat.
The viewer confronts the piece, its scale exaggerated and out of place on the wall, made of fragile Parian ceramic, thin enough to let light through from inside. "Portal" uses the image of the navel and belly to suggest not only a metaphorical, spiritual, or ‘looking inward’ but a medical one: a body’s centre that encapsulates not only our internal organs and a physical connection to our families, but also the site of a visceral anxiety shaped by both personal health concerns and broader uncertainties around care, access, and bodily autonomy - a gut feeling that we can't ignore.