Alluvial Matters is an artistic-research project, sound installation and live metal-melting performance ritual devised in collaboration with Kerry Priest. The project excavates the psycho-geography of tin and metallurgy at three former mining sites around Dartmoor to explore how metal resonates in alluvial archives of silt, metal, flesh and bone.

 The work delves into historical research alongside spoken word poetry and site-specific performance material to tell stories of Dartmoor’s tin mining past. The project explores alchemy as an eco-feminist practise of transformation. We are interested in pathways between metallurgy, alchemy and the materiality of metals, as a way to unearth processes of transformation and narratives that might help us to imagine a less extractive future.

 Our live performance experiments with tin recasting involve melting tin soldiers over an open flame and throwing the molten metal into a bowl of water while reciting spoken word poetry. This is based on a scrying practice and New Year’s eve ritual in Germany called Bleigiessen. The work considers ways of divining new poetic meaning from the tin sculptures and features an installation and audio recordings of poetic responses and experiments. The performance metaphorically excavates different sources of alluvial matter as poetic and performative material. In doing so, we aim to shine light on the shared post-industrial predicament where we are collectively trying to escape extractive, colonial and exploitative structures.

 An installation of the tin sculptures featuring audio recordings of the metal melting ritual and spoken word poetry was exhibited at gallery 333, Exeter Phoenix (Sept-Nov 2024). A live performance of the work was shown as SOAK live Art (May 2023). Another iteration of the live metal melting ritual was shared as part of Spoken Web (2024). You can listen to some of the poetry here.