
Many hands make lightwork (2021)
Fantastical Minecraft night time experience inspired by the lives, loves and fates of Rockingham Castle’s female inhabitants throughout history.
Investigating the life of things across space and time
Dispatch by decapitation:
A heavy-spined knife
to sever her neck,
slit open her belly, belly.
Remove the guts quickly
and set aside her head,
fins swimming back to the sea;
mouth gasping, gasping.
Crunch through her back bone
And chop chop, skin on,
into bite-sized pieces.
Still wriggling, wriggling
throw into a pan of fresh water.
Rinse hands, knife and board
clean of blood, blood
(if skin has any prior wounds,
wear gloves throughout).
Do not rub eyes, eyes;
dispose of entrails.
Add a splash of malt vinegar,
sea salt and white pepper.
Boil then simmer gently, gently
waiting for the skin to flake
as moths and midges gather, gather
in the growing steam.
Skim and cover;
set overnight in fridge.
Next morning, stir and serve cold, cold
in delicate white bowls
with a cup of sweet milk tea
to wash down the jelly, jelly.
Fantastical Minecraft night time experience inspired by the lives, loves and fates of Rockingham Castle’s female inhabitants throughout history.
In 2018 I entered the world of online dating. Quickly I began to see a pattern emerging across my matches; primarily, there were a lot of men stroking big cats. At first the photographs were merely absurd but the more I looked into this phenomenon the darker the implications of these photoshoots became. This series of drawings depicts some of my matches alongside data pulled together from a number of different dating platforms.
The grinding keeps us awake all night. The slipping noise of tooth against tooth, the squeak and rasp of shiny enamelled edges filing monotonously against an equal occluded opposite.
There was something wrong with the sea. The waves were oily and green and forest-filled, like the kelp had been ripped from its leathery footholds by a far away storm and carried here by the currents. A thick tangle of tentacles and skeins spread across the water holding bulging sacs that popped open as they reached the surface and spewed hundreds of bugs onto the undulating skin.
Sarah Gillett is an artist and writer from Lancashire, UK.
She currently lives in London.