Nancy Pilkington

School of Art, Art, BFA 3

An Oracle of Ruin

Recently I have been focusing on my painting practice and engaging with an approach that focuses on the creation of a symbolic language, a means through which I might encode messages of alternative realities or critical histories via peculiar object relations. I see the works like a transcript from an ancient video-game which aims to subvert the archetypal hero narrative. Where a fish, a vessel or a boat become the protagonist.
An Oracle of Ruin (WIP) operates as both artefact and investigation into the specifics of places that retain elements of a remembered or lost past. The film loosely follows a story I wrote about a nocturnal creature who foresees the wreckage of time and is inspired by Walter Benjamin’s ‘Angel of History’. The work responds to the idea of ‘ruin’ as a space for contemplation that might help break from a fortified past – and help re-imagine a radically vulnerable history.