Documentation and research taken during a series of visits to Flat Holm in the Bristol Channel, which culminated in a short residency on the island in September of 2022 with artist Mary Flower. The research continues to inform a larger body of work looking at islands, systems of communication and interspecies relationships.

The island provided a geographically defined space through which to try and absorb and observe the relationships inherent to the island location. Our initial visits to the island were prompted by research into the role of the island as both a place of hermitage 1200 years ago and more recently a place of technological connection (Marconi sent the first wireless telegram from the island to the Welsh mainland in the 1890s), and Flower’s interest in a specific eratic stone on the island.

I became interested in the complex and fragile relationship between the warden, the gulls, the island and the mainland, and the repetitious and futile back and forth of the gulls across the channel - following the same optimistic route the telegram took over a century ago, but bringing back disease and rubbish from the recycling plant near Lavernock Point. The work produced during the subsequent month-long residency @thegarage explored this idea further, using photography, writing, sculpture and drawing to explore the relationship between each entity.