Leila Galloways installation deoland was the fruition of a two week residency at Extractor Space, the former school kitchen in Deptford's Tidemill School Annex.
Deodland was an old English law, abolished in 1862 that legislated that anything thing that had caused a person's death and was to be forfeited to the crown for a charitable purpose, it came from deōdandum, from Latin Deō dandum (something) to be given to God, from deus god + dare to give.
deod land
Time scales seemed moored into poised moments within Extractor Space, flint gravel from the seashore arranged into simple geometric squareness, branches spindling up from the stones, bare and seemingly growing. Silver permeated, glinting on the flint pieces, pooling against a wall and floor, a magical silver tree in a side room growing upwards and downwards through a window sill. Flints cast in pewter and silver were embedded into the walls, a fragile dried daddy long legs minuscule time and dedicate beside the persisting metals, the space seemed full of threads of these tensions of incredible delicacy and incredible resiliance.
Leila Galloway, deodland, Extractor Space, 2015
photographs by Leila Gallaway.
