Nicola Anthony

Incubator

2021, UK

Incubator - An artwork about failures and rebirth

100 burned drawings in coin collecting box, loupe and burnt match.

Installation, variable display size

Each capsule contains a potential for rebirth.

People all over the world have put life on hold, and the pent up energy is building. Each stunted moment is full of future promise. Each failure has its own inherent, unique value and is on the cusp of generating new meaning.

Over the last year, I have archived each creative spark which fizzled out, not dismissing them or berating myself, but daring to fail. I carefully catalogued, burned, and stored each failed artwork, ready to be re-made and reborn.

I spoke to artists who found the lockdown caused an explosion of ideas, and conversely artists who felt they had lost their mojo. I discovered that for me, creativity truly does come from my soul, my heart, my humanity (or whatever we choose to call it), and that in times of anxiety, my unconscious reaction is to wrap my soul in bubble wrap and not let it near the surface. Meanwhile in my day to day I am able to function, to get on with life, but not to do it with soul, with heart, or with vulnerability. Life became very utilitarian. By extension, my creativity just couldn’t get out. It was numbed, dulled, tucked away.

I made myself continue a daily drawing practice. I burned any failed drawings on the log fire, collecting the ashy remains.

In art we know that failures are an important part of the process, but suddenly I was able to viscerally feel the pent up energy in these ‘bloopers’, the smoke becoming a symbol of how past failures can redefine future creations. This sense of potentiality changed me: I found myself making drawings each day, without pressure to succeed, and even at times with the intention of having something to burn that evening. My eyes enjoyed the dancing of the flames and the curling up of the paper like incandescent flowers blooming in timelapse. I found myself trying to save some sketches, trying to give a fair trial. I sensed a glimmer of my future delirium on being released from this suspended moment.

Now we look towards a future filled with promise and a transforming society: The ashes, and indeed each one of us, will still contain our traumas, struggles and failings. But one day these ashes will become useful again. Perhaps they will be transformed into clay or pigments, to take on new shapes and meanings.