Year 2041 - Jill Hedges - Small World Futures

Jill Hedges

Small World Futures is a collection of 38 miniature sculptures depicting what life could look like in years to come. Each of these small artworks will be placed in public spaces (#unsettledgallery) around London Bridge. Every day throughout February we will be featuring one of these worlds here on the website. A writer will also use the world as inspiration to create something new and fresh, their words describing the shape of a new world.

Today we discover the Small World Future of.... Jill Hedges
The year is 2041

My eyes start to deceive me, I now have to look twice, maybe three times before I cross the road.
In my youth it was a quick glance. The world was so solid and definite.
There was never time to doubt the integrity of the physical life that surrounded me.

Today it has become a game of perception. The waning of my body makes me challenge my own eyesight, touch and the decisions I make. The screen based worlds I work and play on give me powers that exceed my childhood dreams. Nights are plagued by visions of losing data, corrupted digital images, and unresponsive screens dying in black stillness. In my waking hours I find myself reaching to press CTRL + Z when things go wrong.

Yet there is a positivity in this doubt. I look twice, maybe three times at two small squares of turquoise hidden down a London alleyway. My fellow pedestrians do not notice me, and do not see the pixilating boxes as they vibrate against the terracotta wall. I am nearly 70 years old now, I am a glitch and I do not care for the realities of others. This world is mine.

Alban Low

Jill Hedges

You can find Jill Hedges' Small World Future located down a little alleyway called Gibbon's Rent #unsettledgallery No.6. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover.

Jill Hedges has had a lifelong fascination with the Moon and the stars. She is an artist who naturally uses different materials and alternative art forms to convey her ideas. In 2015 she created A Space Walk map, an imaginative 5 kilometre walk that has conveniently scaled down the solar system to a manageable size. This map was first exhibited at the ‘On the map’ exhibition at the Sunbury Embroidery Gallery, Sunbury-on-Thames. In 2017 she published Christina's Moon, a charming little chapbook that tells a tale of enduring love through the phases of the Moon. Hedges was one of the original artists behind Gallery 202, a contemporary artist led non-profit initiative based in Northamptonshire. Bringing contemporary art to rural and urban communities through exhibitions and artist involvement with the public. She has been a regular contributor to CollectConnect exhibitions since 2011.

Alban Low is involved in many creative projects, these include album artwork, publishing chapbooks, making films, maps, conceptual exhibitions, live performance and good old drawing. He is artist-in-residence at the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education at Kingston University and St George's University of London. Low spends his evenings in the jazz clubs of London where he captures the exhilaration of live performances in his sketchbook. On Wednesday evenings he sketches the performers on the radio show A World in London at Resonance FM. He is about to open an exhibition of these drawings at the Yehudi Menuhin Concert Hall on the 14th February 2018.
http://albanlow.com/