For The Houses, The Streets, That Whole Fucking Island. 2017. 18k gold, sterling silver, stainless steel. 

Inspired by votive offerings, prayers left at catholic pilgrimage sites. These votive offerings are popularly a metal sheet, shaped into the relief of a specific body part that is referenced in a prayer for healing. 

The piece is titled after a line in Derek Walcott's poem "The Schooner Flight", describing someone who is leaving Trinidad; "I look in the rearview and see a man exactly like me, and the man was weeping for the houses, the streets, that whole fucking island". 

At the back of the brooch is written "aegroto", the latin term for "I am ill/sick".

Photography by Rob Chron