In 2026 I was fortunate to be selected to create work around the theme of Cultural Connections in Somerset to create work for the Somerset Art Weeks Festival. My starting point was a 10,000 year old skeleton Cheddar Man and what relevance he might have for today’s residents of Axbridge and Cheddar. My research took me to caves, museum archives and to the Natural History Museum in London to meet our Mesolithic ancestor. The rich history of archaelogical finds in the Mendip Hills, as well as modern DNA testing of Cheddar Man, has shown that he was a Hunter Gatherer, dark skinned and blue eyed, who travelled many thousands of miles to end up in this corner of Somerset known as Cheddar Gorge.

My project grew from a curiosity to speak to local people who (or whose ancestors) may have also travelled to settle in the local community and to hear their stories. But first by chance I met a local man who in 1997 had had a DNA test which linked him to the local Cheddar Man story as a direct descendant. There is much information and disinformation about this on the internet and having spoken to academics associated with the Natural History Museum testing in 2018 I presented my research in a short film called Looking for Cheddar Man in the Festival. Three local residents speak about their own journeys to the Cheddar area and the items they bring with them to remind them of their own ancestry. These personal items appeared in a display alongside the film, as well as archaelogical finds from the time that Cheddar Man would have roamed the Gorge and community made ceramic tiles depicting caveman images. I also used Lidar Scanning and 3D print of museum artefacts that appeared in the short film alongside archive materials to raise questions about emerging museum ethics and our perception of ancient objects, particularly the care and respect that is required when displaying Mesolithic remains.