The Crime Scene, 2017-26

248 personal items connected forensically by fluorescent thread.

Dimensions variable.

Installation at Firstsite, Colchester for the exhibition Birth of an Icon, 31st January - 10th May 2026.

What makes The Crime Scene installation at Firstsite, Colchester so radically different from the version that lived on my white studio wall for six years is not only the humongous risk of moving and rehanging all 248 personal objects - nor the challenge of reimagining them all within a space of entirely different dimensions - but the decision to paint the wall in red and yellow stripes of receding widths.

During my rebellious teenage years, and much to my parents' horror, I painted my bedroom from floor to ceiling in matte black paint. I had saved enough from odd jobs to buy my beloved 1980s Technics SA-K5 Hi-Fi with built-in radio, twin cassette decks (perfect for bootlegging), and record player with automatic arm that glided effortlessly between 45s and 33s at the touch of a button. Left alone in my darkened lair after bunking off school, I could be found rocking backwards and forwards to the militaristic drumbeat of Metal Postcard from Siouxsie and the Banshees' seminal debut album, The Scream, or sinking into the bleak beauty of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, thanks to the repeat button designed by those ingenious Technics boffins.

Inevitably, the darkness consumed me and what started out as a simple act of rebellion pulled me deeper into a psychological sinkhole enough for my terrified parents to extract me from my black hole and place me within the mental health system, away from family, school and friends.

Six months later, stabilised, I returned home to find my black bedroom had been repainted by my father in receding red and yellow stripes...