In this project I was thinking about the ways that places leave their mark on us even as we try to let go. I dropped leather-soft stoneware bottles on a mold made of cockleshells from my home town. At peak cockle season the waterfront around the cockle sheds is covered in mounds of shells after the creatures have been extracted for selling at the fish stalls. When the bottles hit the mold they contort and compress, taking on the impression of the shells. Some of the pieces are left as raw stoneware, some were glazed and reduction fired, and a few were painted with cyanotype emulsion so they bear the trace of my fingers before the drop.

The animation was also made using cyanotype stills. This animation was a way for me to preserve a moment through a process that is time-intensive and tactile, elevating the significance of the action being captured. The process of making digital recording into analogue means spending time with the images; seconds are broken up into many smaller moments and time stretches out. Slowing things down and spending time in a moment is an interesting way to force myself to stop, observe, feel, appreciate- something that I find so challenging in a world where you're always moving, building, hustling, and (for me at least) often avoiding being present.