Austin Mitchel-Hewitt

Sculpture: Here in this place: each keeping each afloat;
Poem: Here in this place.
Project: Multisensory multispecies storytelling to engage disadvantaged groups in changing landscape

Materials and dimensions: Mixed Media, Wood, Wood dye, Needle felted wool, Paper mâché, plant pots, string and rope. Approximately 60cm wide x 120cm long 150cm tall.
Inspiration: As a performing storyteller and visual artist it was important for me to find a story in the place. Farmland in the Burscough and Ormskirk area is prone to flooding and is protected by pumps at financial cost that keep the water table at a manageable level. If left to nature the area would quickly become marshland. So, after wonderful conversations and workshops with the group, I imagined what might happen if Burscough community farm flooded and the creatures of the land had to be towed to a new place across the rising waters each growing from its own pot, connected and together.

Each creature has an emotional human viewpoint – heroism, calm cunning, worry, fear, stealthy opportunism and blind- mole-like obliviousness- to the catastrophic consequences of flooding. The poem that accompanies the sculpture explores the themes in more detail with Gaia in three-legged cat form calmly waiting for nature to take its course- at whatever the cost.

Artist: Sculpture and poem by Austin Mitchel-Hewitt
Poem performed: Sarah Han
Music and Sound Design: Barry Han
Website: alteredscaletheatre.co.uk
Facebook: @alteredscaletheatre https://www.facebook.com/AlteredScaleTheatre/

Twitter: @altscaletheatre