This diorama is in a blue cabinet, with red vertical bars on the bottom and top panels. Inside is a hippo with wings in a cage.
In the early 1970s I have a very vivid memory of visiting Belle Vue Zoo, which was just outside Manchester. I must have been about five years old, as the zoo closed in 1976. Because money was so tight, we didn’t go on many day trips, so when we did, it was a huge event. It was a Victorian zoo, so it was very dark and imposing, with Gothic architecture and huge enclosures.
The diorama is colourful, but it’s also quite dark. There are red bricks around the edges, and they’re covered in dark brown patterns. The bricks are uneven, as if a hole’s been made in the wall of the zoo, so we can look into the hippo’s cage.
I remember going into a very dark and ominous building, which had lots of animal enclosures. One of the enclosures was basically a huge tank of very dark brown water. I could see a dark shape moving inside, and its size was beyond anything I could ever imagine. The dark shape moved, until its head was above water and all I saw was this giant, gaping mouth with teeth like tombstones sticking out. It was a hippopotamus. It terrified me, at that moment, in that space. My reaction to the hippo was extreme, and on reflection I can now see that this was because it represented something so big and extraordinary.
It was an extreme reaction of both fear and the sublime, as I now know that this experience was linked directly to my creativity being stimulated, and these feelings [were] like those I’ve subsequently felt when I’m being creative, or have an idea for a new piece of work. I can reconnect with my younger self and access that feeling once more.
The hippo is no longer scary, but it’s now beautiful and angelic. So in this diorama it has a pair of white wings sprouting from its back. Its big brown body is covered in black ink patterns. It’s looking to the right, with one chunky tooth poking up between its smiling lips. The grey bars of the cage are behind it. I depict my younger self with my sister looking through the bars at the hippo. We’re both wearing swimming costumes as if we’re on the beach.
There’s another character which the children gaze upon, and that’s a mysterious figure on the right. Its face is covered by the head of a hippo. The figure represents my illness, which is trying to disguise itself. He serves as a metaphor for what is to come. There are windows cut in the arms and legs, showing the bones inside. One of its arms has a wrist brace, decorated with a small pink heart. He’s got four legs and two of his large bare feet are sticking out in front, taking a step nearer to the angelic hippo, and he’s pointing at it. The hippo is my creativity, which is ready to fly.
As timelines merge and interact, the green jellyfish illuminate the scene. They’re floating in front of the red bricks at the edges, and there are more of them behind the children looking through the bars. The future is the past and the past is the future.