Hannah explores British-Trinidadian identity through botanical histories, migration, memory and art.

Hannah often return’s to the quote from Stuart Hall in his essay Cultural Identity and Diaspora: 'Cultural identity is always constructed through memory, fantasy, narrative and myth.' This broad definition of personal formation provides much scope to creatively explore her personal cultural history of being both British and Trinidadian.

Her research examines historical, botanical connections between the Caribbean and Britain, particularly through the Victorian obsession with exotic plants and their transportation via the Wardian Case, invented in 1833. This glass container, designed to transport living specimens across oceans, offers a metaphor for colonial migration. Glasshouses sustain tender migrant plants through carefully controlled microclimates, which is a luxury human migrants rarely enjoy as they adapt to foreign soil. Hannah’s work draws on this parallel, weaving together Caribbean and British landscapes to explore how both plants and people carry histories of displacement.

The exhibition will include a series of sculptural ceramic works that draw inspiration from the linear and grid-like structure of glasshouses. This will also include drawings and paintings made with inks, oil paints, and oil pastels that fuse the garden landscapes of both England and Trinidad together to create a fantastical vision akin to Stuart Hall's definition of cultural identity.