CONDUIT I & II (Sicily, 2025)

In Spring 2025, I travelled overland through Italy to Sicily through the volcanic provinces of the Tuscan countryside, through the Roman magmatic province and past Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei to Etna, and then Stromboli. The trip was part of a broader research trip for my forthcoming book. On the flank of Etna on the 2001 lava flow, I made a hyper-short term, sited, fabric installation made and dismantled in less than one hour - the length of a therapeutic hour. It was made intuitively trusting in an emergent process of curiosity and local atmosphere. I followed the lead of my body, photographing as I went, and making occasional voice notes. At the end of the hour I dismantled the installation. A week later, I continued what was emerging on the volcanic island of Stromboli. I called these installations Conduit I and II.

Over the following months I gave some thought to the meanings of the installation - considering it an embodied, self-generated Rorschach test of sorts. I had travelled to Italy to explore some questions relevant to my book research, and Conduit became part of the enquiry in collaboration with the volcanic landscape. Despite some initial thoughts, the project wasn’t complete until March 2026 (a year later exactly) when the personal meanings of the project became clearer and I started to work more consciously at understanding what I was creating from the edge of my awareness a year prior. Conduit furthers an enquiry around geological intimacy and, what I call, ‘the body geological’. Installation as discovery. It is an ongoing thought-action.

Conduit: Into Geological Intimacy is a 40-page chapbook/zine combining image and text in a collage essay, which explores the development of Conduit, as an idea from installation through to meaning-making in text. It is available to buy in a limited edition from February 2026.