Welcome (Sent Forever) is a collaboration between myself with Daisy Higman, Hum community choir, and Chris Mayoh.

For Goonhilly Village Green, I was invited to make a work that welcomes visitors to GVG, and also responds to the collection at the Museum of Cornish Life.

The artwork, titled Welcome (Sent Forever), draws together seemingly disparate strands of research, including: floral motifs of Helston’s flora day and the welcoming of spring; processional music in Cornish and British folk customs; the now defunct business Sent Forever – a paid for service which offered customers the chance to send messages to heavenly friends and family members and possible extraterrestrial lifeforms, sent from the deep space communications satellites at Goonhilly; cosmic welcome mats – an open source design created by a deep space archeologist and experimental philosopher which aims to welcome alien life to earth.

The work comprises a performance and textile piece. The sung element has been created collaboratively with Hum choir and composer and voice coach Daisy Higman. We used existing texts drawn from my research to inform the lyrics; including the 1666 proto sci-fi work The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish, press releases by Sent Forever, articles about the Cosmic Welcome Mat, and songs, poems and articles about Flora Day traditions.

The performance took place at solar noon at The Gathering and welcomed everyone, across earthly and astral borders, to 2019’s Goonhilly Village Green.

Audio documentation can be heard on soundcloud.

Documentation of the work has been shown at Unbounded, Eden Project, and A Land of Incomparable Beauty, Collective Ending.

Image credits: Artur Tixiliski and Goonhilly Village Green.