2014, 4.24mins 8mm film and VHS video transferred to DVD, and mixed media installation.

(PLATFORM, Cambridge School of Art MA Degree Show 2014. Ruskin Gallery, Anglia Ruskin University.)

Flashback is an impossible attempt to grasp hold of sudden, involuntary, slippery recollections, in order to secure and place the history and meaning of my life. My intention is for the viewer to experience multiple stimuli for their senses – in particular smell, and also touch – in a way that engenders the physicality of memory. The film shows different fragments of an arrested memory, as flashes of time jump out, dissolve, disintegrate and yet still appear, somewhat randomly. The resulting experience sparked by this installation conjoins elements of a life that has been so abruptly destroyed, and beautifully restored, by my relationship with horses.

This work is my final major project for the MA Fine Art I am studying for at the Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University. The exhibition runs from September 4-11. The private view is on Thursday the 4th, at 7pm.

I want to use Flashback to celebrate the meaning and purpose of my life, which I have re-found as a consequence of my recent reconnection with the horses who so inspire me. Creating this work has involved returning to the farm where I grew up, consistently, and entering into the same way of life I had before my head injury over 14 years ago. For the first time since this terrible (and yet wonderful, eventually) accident I can now call myself healthy and fully alive. With my family, and the horses. Who are my family. This transition occurs because when I ride I feel connected to my whole sense of being. Different, fragmented parts of my life reconnect and realign until there is a pure consistency and equilibrium between them. Between myself and my horse. We dance together. Suddenly the world makes sense — and here is who I am.

I hope to express a piecemeal snippet of my renaissance in this artwork. I invite you to walk into the exhibition space and engage with all your sense organs, to capture the physical imprint (and recapturing) of memory, of truth, that leads from my relationship with horses. I share this with you.