The Eustace Collection helps provide nuanced counter-narratives to threats to our historic environment whether it be the mightiest cathedral or the collective thumbprint on an ancient latch. Updated regularly, the aim of Eustace is to build up a resource to help others. They are accessible to everybody. It is an advocacy toolkit for making the invisible value of place visible.
And then there’s Marta herself, and Ryan and Deb. At times, when I was photographing them, I lowered my lens and forgot my work for a while, in awe at the respect, reverence and devotion they had for the monument; for they know, that it is far greater than the sum of its parts.
“In our world," said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas." “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of.”
Here, I explore how these carvings form a vast network of meaning, linking past and present - thus contributing to significance.
Inspired by Edwin Smith’s photography and Olive Cook’s letters, uncover hidden narratives and historical layers that shape this town’s heritage, revealing new ways of seeing place, art, and memory.
Buzzing with this new perspective, I set about photographing elements like this in the hope of sharing the singularity of the occasion with others, and with the wish of disseminating the pattern like a wind blown daisy seed - a bit of heritage grafting with the aid of my camera.
We must cherish and protect these places as if our lives were etched upon it.
Churches remind us of how normal people like us relentlessly hacked, carved, forged, daubed, etched and wove our way out of the unremitting labyrinth of threats to the human condition.
There is a face peeping out from behind the flaking limewash.
As I cycle along the wall, I take in each stone as ballast.
✨ Wondering why I ask for support?
An Anxiety of MembershipsExplore the archive
The Genius Loci Digest can be explored through a series of themed lenses — different routes through photographs, journeys, places and ideas.
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