ᚪ (Oak)

2025

Projection, noticeboard, digital prints on paper, pins

Dimensions (cm): projection: 130 x 130, noticeboard: 71.5 x 120.5

Projected beside a noticeboard pinned with scanned images is a ‘wheel of time’. Within four illustrated panels, this piece depicts the life of the legendary Skyrack tree in Headingley, which stood for a thousand-plus years until it was felled in the 1940s. It is believed that the Vikings named the wapentake of Skyrack after this oak tree.The name ‘Skyrack’ derives from the Old Norse ‘skyr āc’ translating to ‘shire oak’. The symbol at the centre of the wheel: ’ᚪ’ is the Viking rune for the word ‘āc’, thus translating to ‘oak’. The text on the outer edge is taken from medieval depictions of Fortune’s Wheel: ‘I will reign’; ‘I reign’; ‘I reigned’; ‘I’m without a kingdom’.

Detail photos by Jack Pell, install photos by Wes Foster