‘Her sculptures seethe with elemental forces as raw as any myth or cosmogony’

Simeon Nelson, sculptor

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My practice uses speculative fiction to help us imagine Posthuman futures and yet-further futures in which strange hybrid creatures both exist, and have existed. These Conjoined Beings are amalgamations of plant, fungi, animal, e-waste and space debris, all of which swirl around in their bizarre DNA; they have their own system of language, semiotics and art-creation.

My degree show project at the Slade School of Fine Art in Summer 2025, The Future Museum of the Past, is a ‘planodiorama’ (a diorama inside which the visitor can wander) of sculptures, with elements also of sound, video, performance and creative writing. This hypothetical Museum is curated by Postanthros (humans of the future), who share the Earth with Conjoined Beings and who live in equity and harmony with them and with each other. Conjoined Beings themselves have little desire for museums or for exhibiting – they are immersed instead in the rapture of connectedness with all other beings. It is unclear in the curation of the Museum which exhibits are Postanthro re-constructs, which are preserved from the past, and which are living Conjoined Beings. In this imaginary world, some artworks may actually be from the time ‘AnnaC’ spent making sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art in the 2020s, before being one of the first humans to carry out Conjoinment Procedures in the mid-21st Century.

I use natural and discarded materials as much as I can, to mitigate my ACF (Artists’ Carbon Footprint). I cook up biomaterials out of seaweed, vegetable glycerine, natural sheep’s wool and food dyes, and dry them out in flat sheets or in moulds in a dehydrator. I then use them to create membranes and flower-heads for the sculptures. Sticks and branches from my garden form the armatures of my work, and cardboard-mâché the nodes and joins holding everything together.

The environment – and its present disintegration in the Anthropocene – is my main concern; I believe that visual art has a meaningful role to play in transforming attitudes to ecology. I investigate the idea of hope and its importance at this time of planetary degradation and loss. Envisioning positive futures is an ongoing part of that work. For me, hope includes the elements of energy, action and fight, and counteracts the dystopian narratives which produce paralysis and despair.

My work is concerned with ‘interconnected entanglements’ in nature, exploring the idea of symbiosis in forming new interrelationships. Posthumanism, and its call for a different and more respectful relationship with more-than-human species, is a huge influence on my work.

After graduating, I’ hope’m looking to rent a shared artists’ studio in London and to collaborate with like-minded artists and scientists; my aim is to form a collective which will focus on future envisioning in order to engender hope, and co-create exhibitions with audience participation as an integral part. There are many future workshops springing up at the moment – such as Jonas Staal’s Training Camps for the Future which help people to imagine alternative and more equitable ways of living – and I would like to incorporate such interactive, speculative ideas into the way I show work. The importance of story-telling in helping people to imagine more positive outcomes for the planet is now well-established – I’d like to be a part of that narrative.

æn.θrə-bleɪd (transl. anthroblæd), 2024-5.  

Catalpa branches, biomaterials, cardboard-mâché, e-waste, discarded insulation material, cotton thread. 95cm x 45cm x 44cm

wʊdwɛb (transl. woodweb), 2025 (WIP)

Buddleia branches, biomaterials, cardboard-mâché, masking tape, glue.

180cm x 93cm x 77cm

Entangled System I, 2024-25. Biomaterials, catalpa branches, e-waste, discarded copper piping and copper plate, cardboard-mâché, masking tape, glue.

Dimensions vary.

Entangled System II, 2025

Catalpa twigs, cardboard, glue, e-waste, biomaterials, discarded copper piping,  aluminium etching plate, projector, video, sound

Dimensions vary

Entangled System II, 2025

Still from video GreenBeing

GreenScreen, 2025.

Catalpa branches, cardboard-mâché, masking tape, e-waste, biomaterials, wallpaper paste, glue.

120cm x 150cm x 3cm

wʊdwɛb (transl. woodweb), 2025 (WIP)

Buddleia branches, biomaterials, cardboard-mâché, masking tape, glue.

180cm x 93cm x 77cm

wʊdwɛb (transl. woodweb), 2025 (detail)

Entangled System III, 2024-5.

Tree branches, discarded insulation material, catalpa branches, discarded copper piping, biomaterials, e-waste, sound. Dimensions vary

Entangled System III, (detail)

GreenBeing, 2024

Latex, pigment, glue, chicken wire, spool, cardboard tube, metal pipe 

176cm x 91cm x 32cm