Catching Copper is a short story, and a multi-layered exhibition that took place at Michell’s Engine House, National Trust East Pool Mine, located within the Unesco - Cornwall and West Devon World Heritage Site. 

The exhibition included video, sculpture, drawing and an audio of the short story, all of which draw upon personal experience and memories of the Camborne mining area, to consider loss, social change and the legacy of extraction industries and the long-lasting impact of inequitable power distribution - locally and globally.

The material and making of these works articulates a deep connection to Kernow/Cornwall - rooted in relationships with land and sea, labour practices, and an indigenous language  

Using lost wax casting of reclaimed copper pipe from Sovay’s plumbing business, found cloth from family and Cornwall‘s Scrapstore, film, audio and watercolour drawings, each work is feeling its way around an imagined lump of copper, and the shifting and layering markers of self and relationships- with land, with work, with culture, family and ancestry, and with loss and ambition.

To listen to an audio version of the story please click on the image of the book below.