Curse of the Cursus
“As an unresolved and peculiar phenomena, the Cursus and the search for its meaning became the subject of my work.
It gave me the opportunity to invent a narrative based upon an ancient but ‘still-present’ culture, protected by the descendants of those who came here thousands of years ago.
I developed stylised representations of the Cursus itself, which I tagged onto features in the landscape between Woodhenge and the western edge of the Cursus. Posts, stones, MOD signs and gates became the focus of increased tagging activity over the period of the dig in 2007, but particular significance was given to the dozen or so Cattle-troughs that flank the full mile of the Cursus. I started to think of them as fitting containers or Sarcophagus to transport the dead to another world, supporting my theory that this was a place where people bought their dead to be laid-out to the elements, and where you could lie up to 23,000 within its ditches. These ideas and the daily sitings of helicopters and tanks in the area became integrated into the overall narrative and Rock-Art style iconography. It culminated in the elaborate decoration of one particular trough, and a large-scale drawing made on the chalk-floor of one of the archaeological ditches.
Subsequently, this narrative has expanded to include a mythological trail relating to the Cursus, or ‘Curse of the Cursus’. It includes cheap paperback titles, film posters, artefacts, photos and a lecture, positing theories based on this invented evidence, pieced together by a man obsessed or possessed.
I will be returning this year to continue the story…”