Spiritual Currencies

Dancer: Jodi Ann Nicholson
Artwork: Spiritual Currencies, 2024, textile artwork, 1400 x 150 cm
Creative Producer: Chantelle Purcell
Videography: Leon Bowen

Chantelle is keen for her work to connect meaningfully with the industrial heritage of the site, exploring the impact of international trade on both the landscape itself and more widely; the colonial implications of the industries once prevalent across the UK. Key themes of crossing and passage; connection and language; and land and labour are explored within a newly developed film work, made in collaboration with filmmaker Leon Bowen on location in Cefn Mawr and close to the aqueduct. The film includes footage of the village and landscape which retains physical traces of the iron and connecting industries. The work takes inspiration from Bersham Ironworks, known to produce canons, some of which were sold to the Royal Navy who used them in battleships in Western African ports and Plas Kynaston Works which produced iron castings for the Pontcysyllte aqueduct. Chantelle hopes to raise awareness of the differing facets of this heritage and its wide-ranging implications, exploring iron’s power, from the profane to the sacred, highlighting its divination, spiritual healing and ability to destroy. The film documents a processional journey of a large and vibrant textile work, featuring patterns referencing local architectural landmarks combined with African symbolism. In the short film, the textile is carried by the artist and Welsh-based dancer Jodi Ann Nicholson, on the performative journey, the artwork travels on a boat across the aqueduct and is taken back to the source of the minerals that were extracted to feed the furnaces of the site both literally and metaphorically. The work attempts to forge connections to the ancestral heritage of both women, embodying a post-industrial space as a form of quiet activism, reclaiming the environment and spiritually forging communion.

Her work more broadly seeks to connect to her Jamaican heritage, searching for an understanding of herself and the world around her. In this, and in past projects, such as for the Canal & River Trust programme, Hinterlands Enfield, Chantelle harnesses the power of water as a symbolic vehicle to explore difficult subjects that affect communities both locally and globally.