Tracey Eastham on British values and ‘blitz spirit’

PAPER Artist Tracey Eastham makes work concerning questions of nationhood and landscape, predominantly using hand-cut paper and collage to create delicate wall-based and sculptural forms. Here she updates us on the latest developments in her practice, including her thoughts on how COVID-19 has interacted with our sense of ‘British values’ and the ‘great outdoors’. For more, read our full artist feature, ‘Tracey Eastham: Symbols of Identity’, here.

Last year I undertook research into the iconography associated with British values.  The large-scale paper cuts I created as a result were a critique of the government approved British values that all educators are expected to embed into their teaching.

Following this, and during the early stages of the COVID-19 lockdown, I made a small series of ‘flags’ featuring images of the Union Jack and images I found myself looking at, such as from interior design magazines and science fiction book covers. There seemed to be a parallel between these different modalities of ‘interior spaces’, each a strange ideological version of our real environment.

In addition, conversations about the role of Britishness have become more apparent within society during the pandemic. So-called British values were seen to be important to the ‘lockdown effort’ and people started enjoying a traditional sense of hitherto lost communities, embracing a ‘blitz spirit’. Through the ‘stay at home’ policy, household groups have created their own ‘interior bubbles’ and ideas of Britishness have contributed to this, furthered by a growing number of people ‘reconnecting’ to their gardens, planting seeds and growing their own version of the ‘great outdoors’.  

This is indeed a form of reconnecting to our immediate environments, albeit through an ideological lens, whilst taking us away from the perceived wildness of the spaces outside of our perimeter walls. Yet, I am unsure whether our current engagement with nature and environment is now more distanced than ever. The images that I have created within the flags are accordingly strange and discordant and reflect the uncertain relationship between nationhood and our natural environment.

The flags are a development of my recent research and I am also looking into images of dome crystal paperweights as a continuation of my glass bell jar work in 2016.  My previous interest in images of ruin that informed my bell jar work and also my ‘Babel’ work is linked to my current interest in fragility and nature as spectre.

Born in Preston in 1983, Tracey graduated from Wimbledon School of Art (London) in 2006 with a distinction and an Axis MAstar award for her Masters. Now based in the North West, she has exhibited and received commissions nationally and in Europe, with work held in private collections.  Her research focusses on the themes of nationhood, Britishness and accompanying stylised depictions of nature and architectural ruins. Tracey is represented by PAPER, Manchester and is a Senior Tutor at Blackpool School of Arts.