This exhibition of small clay statues and ceramic whistles is a personal response from artist Emma Carlow to news that the farmland that surrounds the village of Hamsey in East Sussex is being considered for a housing development.

Taking inspiration from David Attenborough’s words “No one will protect what they don't care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced” Emma set out to explore, record, and celebrate this pocket of countryside before it potentially disappears.

It has been a chance for her to connect with the location and with local residents and explore her shared feelings of loss, frustration and lack of power around the urgent need for affordable housing and the importance of preserving rural spaces that provide homes for our threatened wildlife, inviting a conversation about these seemingly opposing agendas. 

The show is in two parts; the first a series of works called Oak Life. A collection of ceramic whistles representing just a few of the 2,300 species that rely on oak trees, Britain’s most ecologically significant tree, for food, as a breeding ground and as a home. The second is a collection of small clay sculptures. Over the past year Emma has been in a creative dialogue with different plants and creatures by closely observing either a specimen or a photograph and making a quick intuitive clay ‘sketch’. These are not scientific models, but rather personal interpretations.

“Botanists, entomologists and zoologists would shake their head at my attempt to capture the appearance of my subjects. My approach of working quickly, using raw clay and attempting to abandon preconceptions, prevent a photographic resemblance, but my clay sketch is telling my subject that I’ve listened to it, and this is what I understand about its essence. Each piece holds meaning for me, like a shorthand memory.”

With the support of ceramicist Sara Howard and Jennie Lathbury from Eastbourne Studio Pottery Emma has been able to use locally sourced clay that was destined for landfill and develop glazes and oxides from waste material, that are specific to the farmland, which would otherwise be wasted, making each piece not only about the land, but of it.

Emma says it is her hope that this work deepens her connection with this land and will provide her with a starting point for conversations that enlighten her about planning decisions being made across the country.