Lily Petch is a visual, multidisciplinary artist and writer from Worthing/London UK.
Her practice ruminates on the capacity writing has to outlive the human body. This takes visual form in text, land art and installation based work, embedded sensitively into rooms, institutions and environments. Her installations display fictional and poetic arrangements of objects centred around books or text, sometimes paired with her own field recordings. Petch’s work encourages the symbolism and fragility of chosen materials which relate to the preservation and history of inscription. She prompts the potential these materials have to collapse or endure erasure, often when exposed to environmental factors.
During the November residency, I produced a twelve part series of poetry and text segments containing ideas on geothermal energy, memory, histories of recording, subterranean incubation, burials, artefact, absence, futility and deep time. These texts were printed on vellum, wrapped in clay and buried around the village of Stöðvarfjörður at the start of the month. I then excavated the remaining eight pieces at the end of the month. The final text was also placed at the Mid-Atlantic ridge in between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates in Thingvellir. Alongside this project, I produced a series of small pencil drawings and carved wooden replicas of Roman wax tablets.
I found great inspiration in the ‘Prose Edda’, bought an Ensk/Islensk dictionary and assumed the role of a tiny ant, wandering amongst the epic vastness of the Icelandic countryside.
Website: https://www.lilypetch.com/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/lilyrpetch
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