OLD FLAMES: Rekindling ideas of fire, humanity and representation through creative art practice

This chapter incorporates a visual essay, a creative reflection on representations of early human life, and a textual account of the practice-led research process used to develop the artwork Old Flames. As the title of the artwork and this chapter suggests, my approach to making these images and thinking about early human life is explored through the lens of fire. The purpose in emphasising the role and impact of art is, in the first instance, to suggest that any effort to undertake a decolonised approach to human origins research must take account of the visual context in which it operates. This context is used as a departure point for discussing my own art practice, in order to ask: what might a decolonised approach to imaging human origins look like as art? And more specifically, is it possible to image aspects of early human life, from the perspective of the present, without 'representing'