This series of work is based on the river Thames in London, with its dark murky waters and forms of life, and the city’s history of freak shows and cabinets of curiosity displays. A Jenny Haniver is the manipulation of a ray or a skate, with the intention of resembling a fictional creature. These, alongside fake mermaids and other curious artefacts, were exhibited and sold in London as real creatures, which fuelled the imagination of visitors.

Based on the research on Jenny Haniver specimens from the London Natural History Museum collection, a series of paintings and sculptures made out of seaweed were produced. The use of seaweed referred to their watery worlds and their connection to the river, an important trade vehicle in the past, bringing in cultural influx from distant shores to London. In a way the Jenny Hanivers personified the river, watery lives and hybrids of cultural entanglement, born from its muddy banks.

The practice of mudlarking - looking for relics of former times amongst the river's banks in between tides - also became a part of the project. Fragments of ceramics, glass, or clay pipes from different centuries were found and collected to provide the background of the river's history, which is still churning out preserved remnants of everyday objects.

Drawings produced on the banks of the Thames river also accompany the jenny hanivers, looking at the water itself and the materiality of its shores, the stones, the algae growing on its walls, and its flies. These explore the physical and ecological aspect of the Thames, supplementing the body of work with another facet of the river, its natural life.

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Your Inner Fish