“Mementos”

Unfired earthenware, 2025

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The National Lottery Heritage fund has granted Gloucestershire Archives a two year Green Pledge Project to collate and represent the counties environmental legacy and encourage attention towards the climate crisis the county faces.

Nicola was selected to create artwork that responds directly to the aims and objectives of the Green Pledge Project. The work will be part of a touring exhibition, travelling around the county.  Her research and the work done by the Gloucestershire Archives illustrates our shifting relationship with wildlife and the landscape. Mementos directly relates to the loss of farmland, woodlands, hedgerows and orchards, inspired by old maps, photographs and journals from the archives.  They are 'unfire slipcasted ceramic' sculptures of acorns, rosehips, hazelnuts, parsnips and apples.

 

Farmland, woodlands, hedgerows and orchards, many have been lost forever and what is left is under enormous threat. “Mementos”, emphasises the vulnerabilities within our environment and are symbolic of lost landscapes.  Documents and ancient maps at Gloucestershire Archive bear witness and evidence this decline.  We consider this to be a form of ‘slow violence’. It is not instantaneous or spectacular but it is attritional and spreads over time. If we are to have hope for the future, we need to adopt the philosophies around “care” and understand our responsibilities behind “custodianship”. 

These objects are fragile and placed on the floor, therefore emphasising the need for “care,” both literally and metaphorically. The ethics of care, defined by Joan Tronto and María Puig de la Bellacasa, focuses on attentiveness, trust, responsiveness to need, narrative to nuance and cultivating care of relations. On the last day of the exhibition the audience is invited to take a piece home with them, therefore continuing the meaning of this artwork.  They are given 'care instructions' and asked to email Nicola with images and notes about how their new 'Momentos' are being cared for and once disintegrated (which will be inevitable), how they will be disposed of ? Will they be thrown in the bin, recycled or given back to the earth and composted.