Taking inspiration from H.G. Wells’ ‘The Time Machine’, Ballard’s ‘Drowned World’ and Jarman’s ‘The Last of England’, A Garden Futuricity by artist John Vincent is a fictional construction of a future world ravaged by war and climate change. Set in Letchworth Garden City, the work poses the question: what if the global issues frequently reported finally reached this quiet town? 

The exhibition takes the form of two distinct works – a large scale wall-based digital print and a video work. The site-specific print depicts an imagined view looking out from the gallery space through a hole blown from the wall. The wall is a barrier breached to reveal a surrealistic dystopian vision of catastrophic proportions -  a parallel universe of a world flooded and in ruins with many familiar buildings damaged or destroyed altogether.

In Vincent’s film a time traveler is struggling to control their malfunctioning garden shed time-machine and is tumbling back and forward through time and location in the immediate vicinity, bearing witness to the destruction of civilisation as we know it; the traveler also notes the curious rise and fall of the artists imagined ‘cult of Ebenezer’ and a society divided by those who have chosen to remain in the (garden) city and those who have chosen to live in the wilderness of the common.

John’s artistic practice encompasses painting, video, digital art and photography. He completed a BA in Fine Art at Middlesex University (1999) and MA in Fine Art at the University of East London (2004). He has exhibited nationally and internationally – including the ‘Cuts’ solo show in Locarno, Switzerland (2007). John is a previous prize winner at the Creekside Open (2011) and a former Fellow at Digswell Arts. John has a studio in Letchworth Garden City at Eastcheap Studios