Shadow sacks is a series of black hand knitted and felted sculptures. They were installed as part of the B-Wing exhibition at Shepton Mallet Prison, 21 Sept - 6 Oct 2019.
'(The shadow is a) long bag we drag behind us . . . We spend our life until we're twenty deciding what parts of ourselves to put in the bag, and we spend the rest of our lives trying to get them out again.' Robert Bly
Poet and author, Robert Bly, suggests that we all carry what he calls a 'long bag' or shadow sack behind us. It contains things we have repressed since childhood – passions, feelings, memories, behaviours and more. As we get older our shadow sack begins to leak and we’re compelled to examine the contents. Sometimes we find gold amongst the shadows.
My Shadow sacks were installed in a small, dingy room called the 'slopping out room' on the ground floor of B Wing. It's where the prisoners would have emptied their toilet buckets in the past. Here, my sculptures were suspended with black wool, hovering over the toilet and sinks.