A Peculiar and Dangerous Convenience. I began this work over 20 years ago whilst studying at the University of Brighton. The work examines - using everyday, commonly seen examples - the idea of human ascendancy over the natural world – our need to manage, control and contain it. I have continued to add to the project. I originally called the series ‘Human Nature’ and thought of it as ‘a ‘tragi-comedic’ study of our relationship with the natural world’. However, as the evidence mounts and with it our increased understanding of what is happening to the planet and our impact upon it, has made me see it as something much darker. And it feels more relevant than ever. Eco-anxiety is a recognised and increasingly common condition. The existential fear of climate breakdown and our own mortality - the end of the world, the world that we have created. And as the evidence is laid bare, it is a very uncomfortable realisation. We can stuff a dead animal, put it in a box, we can build dams, we can use nature as camouflage. But we have exploited and abused it for our own convenience, sanitizing, packaging and perfecting it to our needs and desires. These everyday details remind us, as we stare out over the precipice with an increasing sense of unease and fear, that we’ve overlooked the natural balance of things, the natural order. We’re not in control at all. We’ve been kidding ourselves all along. The title of the work is derived from the following text written in 1780. «Ask anyone for what purpose everything exists. The general answer is that everything was created for our practical use and accommodation! In short, the whole magnificent scene of things is daily and confidently asserted to be ultimately intended for the peculiar convenience of mankind. Thus do the bulk of the human species vauntingly elevate themselves above the innumerable existences that surround them». GH Toulmin, The Antiquity and Duration of the World, 1780 (Two sub-sets from the work were selected by Val Williams for her show ‘New Natural History’ at the then National Museum of Photography, Film and TV, Bradford, in 1999).