The Dawn and the Downs
In 2017 I discovered a series of graffiti spots that surrounded my home in suburban Hove, the author of which seemed to call out to the casual passer by, albeit with caps-lock intensity, to stand back and ‘HAIL SATAN’. Amused and curious, I began to document as many of these sites with my smartphone I came across. After building up a small archive of these temporal occurrences, all of which were later covered up or removed by the district Council, I decided to research the folklore in my local area, inspired by the combination of the graffiti sites and the name of a valley just north of Brighton & Hove, evocatively known as ‘Devil’s Dyke’.
My search ended with the discovery of a folktale that allegedly gives rise, and reason, to the etymology of the valley. The Devil, seeking to flood the country of Sussex and in so doing rid the land of all its Christian dominion, dug deep into the downs to make a valley to the sea. Unfortunately for him an old woman was awoken by his digging and tricked him into believing that dawn was approaching. In his last ditch attempt, the Devil flung his final clods of earth into the air, disappearing before the sun, the earth constructing several sites across Sussex in his wake.
Expanding on the photographic element of the project I began to write letters between a descendant of St. Dunstan (who is often linked in folktales to unthreading the many heinous plots of the Devil) and an unknown recipient who were somehow linked to the origin of the folktale and its modern-day referent. In their first display, the letters were stolen from the gallery and I have yet to discover where they went.
As a means of developing playful literary and visual links between historical and modern forms of folklore, The Dawn and the Downs was conceived primarily as a lens-based installation project that brings together different and diverging forms of media as a way to track traces of the Devil, to imagine new forms of modern folklore, and to narrow the gap between urban and rural landscapes.
The gallery below displays selected photographs of the folk-sites, smartphone images of the graffiti spots that ignited the project, excerpts from the fictionalised letters between S. Duncan and an unknown recipient, and assorted documentation that detail the ‘investigative’ nature of the project.
It was first exhibited in 2018 at the Phoenix Gallery, Brighton as part of the Brighton Photo Fringe, and has since been shown in two different forms as part of the 2019 Artist Open Houses, Brighton and the Faking it! Conference, held at the Attenborough Centre, Sussex University.
Wilbury Road, Hove, Brighton and Hove, East Sussex.
Hove Park Road, Hove, Brighton and Hove, East Sussex.
Newtown Road, Hove, Brighton and Hove, East Sussex.
Wilbury Avenue, Hove, Brighton and Hove, East Sussex.
Site III: Devil’s Dyke, South Downs, Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, U.K.
‘Hail Satan’ Smartphone Images
To the left are a selection of graffiti sites that were collected over a period of time in 2017, in and around my local neighbourhood. Often discovered while walking either to buy groceries, to my local café, to work, or as a way to de-stress after a long day, these casual instances always managed to brake up my journey and gave me a great deal of pleasure.
These loud declarations stood out in an environment that was formulated mostly around middle-class, young families, however the humour extended beyond this into other realms. The insignia painted underneath the words ‘Hail Satan’, for example, used in one or two of the sites I found, is of a pentagram, not the ‘Sigil of Baphomet’, the official insignia of the modern Church of Satan, which takes form as an inverted pentagram (the central point facing downwards).
To me, this signified a childlike lack of knowledge and eroded any ideas of genuine Satanic worship (no surprises there), making the whole practice of spray painting potentially ‘controversial’ statements even more funny. However, as many folkloric depictions of the Devil characterise him as a trickster, I couldn’t help but feel some authentic reference reverberate off the red bricks, the metal electric boxes and other potential sites of satanic declarations, of being at least somewhat, if not inadvertently, accurate to the Devil’s character.
Site I: Chanctonbury Ring, Chanctonbury Hill, Wiston, East Sussex, U.K.
At the peak of Chanctonbury Hill lies a ring of beech trees that has become characteristic of the site, as well as a walking destination for locals and tourists alike. It is said that if you reach the summit you can summon the Devil by running anticlockwise around the ring of beech trees seven times, by which he will appear and offer you a bowl of soup in exchange for your soul.
According to Doreen Valiente’s 2012 book ‘Where Witchcraft Lives’, the ring is also said to grant greater fertility in women who sleep underneath the trees for one night.
Site IV: Mount Caburn, Wiston, East Sussex, U.K.
Photographs detailing the installation of ‘The Dawn and the Downs’ at Phoenix Gallery, Brighton, as part of a group show with Ontic Collective and the Brighton Photo Fringe 2018.