“Welcome’ started out in the year 2000 as a response to negative articles, about immigrants and refugees, in the media. People coming to these shores and learning to speak their first words of English had provided me employment as a teacher in the local college, the stories and accounts of why people came to the UK that I was hearing did not reflect what we were seeing in the media, and so was something I wished to address.
I set about making a piece of work, that allowed me to make comment on what and how the media were reporting. Sand flags, like the ones you may have had at the beach as a child, became the device that I chose to employ for their innocent quality. Initially making a test series of 8, that evolved into a set of 500 flags, that were to become a temporary installation on a beach.
The installation was set up at Minsmere on the Suffolk Coast. I was filmed from the cliffs by a friend, who made a short film about the work. The flags were planted in a shoal like formation along the sandy shore, where the water met the land. With the tide receding they sat planted into the sand while they were documented. Each white paper flag bearing the word Welcome, fluttering in the wind. On removing and packing away the flags (that remain to this day in storage), I scribbled the word welcome into the wet sand, the word positioned as to be read by someone walking onto the land from the sea. This spontaneous act soon became an act of tradition with each of my UK beach visits, some 25 years later I am still writing the word and documenting its fleeting appearance, until it is walked over or washed away by a wave.
In 2023 I was again moved by media coverage relating to immigration, it seemed that we had not moved on or become kinder as a nation, that the sand flags I had made over twenty years ago were sadly still relevant today. I set about making a new set, almost identical to those that I had made all those years ago. A set of 100, that could be planted and replanted, a touring installation of sorts, that would exist as a series of photographs after its realisation at various coastal locations.
Politics became very divisive and with government rhetoric also being hostile towards LGBT+ people two more versions of the flags were produced, one of the traditional pride flag colours and a second of the trans pride flag colours. These again were toured around the country to make appearances and be documented.
A spin off piece of work was made in 2024, relating to the term, ‘small boats’ that had been heard so much through negative narratives in the media. 100 origami white paper boats were made and were placed on bamboo stakes in the waves lapping the shore, their direction undetermined, and varying pending on the direction of the wind.
With government focus turning towards homeless people, I started to produce another spin-off work, ‘Welcome Inland’, with the word welcome being written, this time on doorsteps, door thresholds as well as entrance ways in suburban settings. Welcoming people to our communities, and prompting thoughts of kindness towards those closer to home.
Some 25 years on, these notions of welcoming are being documented and seen online via Instagram, a brilliant tool for sharing images and ideas with likeminded people. But it somehow does not feel that the reach is getting as far as it needs. During the later months of 2025 I created artist recipe cards, to be disseminated digitally to share the project further. Democratising art has been something that I have had interest in through my career, and so the recipe cards invite people from all walks of life to create their own welcoming notion, be it on a beach or doorstep. If we all share, perhaps a national mindset can become a little kinder.
Portiphillio 