Arabel Lebrusan

HomeLand is a site-specific installation of approximately 140 ceramic swallows with hand-engraved tin beaks; symbols of migration, memory and belonging.

The sculptures were developed through a series of co-creation clay and tin workshops for refugees, local schoolchildren and families, led by Lebrusan and ceramicist Kate Lyons-Miller. Formed from Dartmoor’s ancient clay and local Ashburton tin, they draw directly on the land’s geological and cultural history to explore the shifting meanings of ‘home’ as a continuum – past, present and future.

Installed in the shade of an ancient hornbeam tree, the expanse of vertical sticks topped with small swallow sculptures is conceived to evoke a forest of stillness for a species constantly in motion. The installation is site-specific to the gardens of Southcombe Barn, an arts and artist residency space in rural Dartmoor. It forms the central project of Dartmoor Clayscapes: Empathetic Journeys through Clay, a programme of arts comprised of workshops, interactive performance and film. Engaging with the materiality of clay ‘kinaesthetically,’ it invites us to reflect on contemporary issues of migration and ecological crisis, supporting the development of empathic responses to both human and more-than-human forms of life.

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