Ghost Gear Poppets

A site-specific project for North Cornwall, Padstow in collaboration with artist Andrew Whittle.

Conjured in the lead up to the G7 Summit in June 2021. The plastic poppets taking inspiration from traditional West Country Magic and Witchcraft, the local Old Ways.

With groups of school children we made talismans using plastic waste collected from the Seven Bays by Beach Guardian CIC.

Poppets made from Ghost Gear aid our cause through magic.

They are custodian spirits brought ashore with a message,

they know what is occurring in the Ocean deep.

Inside each belly is a charm,

Binding the waste where it can do no harm.

Set free, they journeyed by land and by sea to haunt the G7 summit.

Collaborators: Andrew Whittle, Beach Guardian CIC

Participants: St Issey Primary School, St Merryn Primary School, Wadebrige School, Beach Guardian volunteers.

Funders: Screen Cornwall, Beach Guardian CIC.

Following the community workshops I made my own Ghost Gear Poppet. An oracle born from the sea. With my brother by my side we cycled the Ghost Gear Oracle Head and poppets made in the workshops to Bodmin Moor. To Neolithic sacred sites, stone circles and sacred wells.

Ghost Gear Oracle Head, 2021
Waste plastics cleaned from Cornish beaches by Beach Guardian CIC.
Buoy, rope, net, fishing tackle.

Lifted to the top of Brown Willy 420m and washed in the midst of Bodmin Moor.

Laid on granite as old as the Earth, to spread the message of the Ocean Deep to the ancestors of old.