Breaking the Surface

Commissioned by Hull Time Based Arts, for rivercommissions a series of new public art works made in response to the urban regeneration of the River Hull corridor.

Breaking the Surface involved the cutting in half of a pearl so that its interior could be photographed with an electron scanning microscope.

Made up of forty separate images (taken at a magnification of 200 x and made into one composite image) the resulting work revealed the irritant which had caused the oyster to generate the pearl.

Presented as a light box set into the lawn of the Wilberforce Museum, the work traced ideas around contamination and regeneration, related to: the association of the site with histories of slavery and colonialism; Hull as a port; the urban renewal scheme that the commission was attached to and contemporary debates around immigration.