Home Front Cyanotype Print Collection

This collection of Cyanotype prints focuses on how the war on resources such as fossil fuels, food and water create conflict and tension abroad and at home. 

It began to take form in response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks on the illustrators office in Paris when I began to ask questions about conflict in the Middle East. It all began when I picked up a chinagraph pencil an and thought about examining a map of the middle east to try to unravel the conflict for myself in the studio. It was a complicated history but I tracked back to the British and French agreement and the division of the Fertile Crescent. A land I referred to as the first paradise rich in resources of water and food supplies and which is also known as the Fertile Crescent. The land wasn’t decided using existing civilian divisions such as tribal settlements or by natural landscape divisions such as the mountain ranges or valleys.. but using a straight metal ruler. This led to the production of the artwork initially titled A/b. 

During in the pandemic I was relieved to see how the vaccination programme extended beyond our shores to help people who were in less fortunate countries. I felt that this gave hope that in extreme circumstances humanity will share resources and that war and conflict could be avoided. This work, entitled vaccination, visualised this hope for me. It also had echoes within it of 9/11 as a terrifying consequence of not considering how conflicts abroad affect us at home. 

Following this, and during the pandemic, research led to the discovery that major powers were increasing their purchase of nuclear weapons. This included America, China and Russia. This produced the work entitled ‘Fuelity’. 

Of course then came Russia’s war on Ukraine and how this became a resource war in which the cost of fuel and food increased the costs of living at home. This tension let to the consideration of how this tension in relation to domestic conflict and abuse which was a second blow to those living under difficult conditions during lock down. The work produced for this was entitled ‘war table’. 

Further work is expected to follow for this collection but for now this work is available at www.sarrashepherd.com