Alertism - Lucy Furlong

Welcome to the Alertism exhibition, featuring artistic and literary works that were inspired by the Emergency Alert test message that was sent to people with a mobile device on Sunday 23rd April at 3pm.

Lucy Furlong has been a long time collaborator on CollectConnect projects. She contributed to the memorable eMotion installation at the Tate Modern, and more recently was a writer for the Urban Tree Festival's Sentinel Trees. Nature and walking both play an important role in her work. Lucy released a second edition of her Amniotic City map in 2022, learn more about it here. Our First Responder is Vicki Kaye. Lucy and Vicki have shared a stage before at various poetry events (Writers Kingston event #52 / European Poetry Festival / Óvinir: The Enemies Project) and feature in the anthology FRACTURED LIGHT (ISBN 978-1-915505-09-5).

First Responder: Vicki Kaye

Is kindness an act of revolution?
kindness
with 'gentle indifference'
that word -  gentle 

gentle

so soft yet powerful
in the hands of a warrior
so full of feeling that implies
minding caring
judgement is hard-wired
and hard to resist

there is a revolution to be fought

What is the value of inner peace?

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The writing journey of Lucy Furlong has taken her from signing a record deal aged 19, as a singer and lyricist in a band, to a stint in corporate communications working on in-house publications in the 1990s and early 2000s. She attained a degree in creative writing and journalism at Kingston University, and then a MFA in creative writing, specialising in poetry, alongside a Post Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (PGCLTHE). Lucy has published and performed poetry for over a decade, and her work is taught as part of the Open University MA in Creative Writing.

Vicki Kaye is an experimental artist/writer. Having a BA (Hons) in Drawing and Applied Art and an MA in Fine Art, she has had work shown in numerous exhibitions and her visual poetry has appeared recently in Periodicities Journal, and Beir Bua Journal. She is a member of the Space Place Practice artists’ research hub and Spike Island Associates.