Yours is the earth and everything in it
2020, UK
Yours is the Earth and Everything in it, (2020) Nicola Anthony (c)
If you can dream, and not make dreams your master…
Stainless Steel Installation (W 325cm x H 125cm x D 6cm)
A quote from Rudyard Kipling poem If (1895), which has been repeated, abstracted and distorted in this artwork.
In modern times the work of Kipling has been controversial, coming from an imperialist era which did not embrace equality as we do in these times. To that end the poem has been rearranged, abstracted, and lines carefully selected. Although If itself is not a poem that makes any controversial or racist statements, it is an example of looking at past art through the lens of new art, and through the lens of a contemporary society. We cannot go back and edit old poems, views, or narratives - but we can choose what we take forward and how we contextualise and re-understand it.
Rudyard Kipling lived on Villiers Street for time, in what is now called 'Kipling House'. He references the area in this poem so the artwork becomes a literary map of the area. The text also follows the geographical contour lines of the Thames River, taking this as a start point for the direction of flow of the text.
This sculpture can be visited at 40 Villiers Street, London WC2N 6NJ, open on weekdays.
About the Artist
Nicola Anthony is a British artist known for metal text sculptures and burned paper assemblages, which give glimpses into the effects of displacement, migration, intergenerational trauma, and emergent behaviour in society. She focuses her research on untold narratives, collective memory, hybrid intelligence and the embodiment of life stories. She is also influenced by epigenetics, big data, linguistics, and the inseparable existence of nature and culture.
She has an innate ability to transform words into messages of profundity, her work is a journal of a thousand souls. She collects human testimonies, empowering and transforming them into contemporary art. From the playful to the heart-wrenching, each artwork is shaped by the narrative it contains.