My Body is a Sundial
The body is not only a record of solar time but also of solar intensity; we are fundamentally, sensorially, emotionally and biologically interconnected to our closest star.
My Body is a Sundial is a conversation between two bodies held too close: human and celestial, ricocheting, raging and merging inside hot cities of glass, asphalt and steel. It explores embodied memories of extreme urban heat, reconciling bodily frailty with the artist’s intrinsic and ancient awe for our closest star. Building upon Drawing Heat, a series of walkshops that interwove experimental, sensory-led mark-making with environmental history storytelling, My Body is a Sundial was originally commissioned by the research project Melting Metropolis at the University of Liverpool with Queens College New York.
Encased in metal and cleaved in two, layers of inks merge, sweat, pulse and crawl between a sundial of twelve panels – memories of summers past and present. As the sun travels across the sky, abstract figures suspended in plastic and metal appear and disappear, casting shadows that extend and contract while human and more-than-human visitors alter paintings and sight-lines through their physical presence and reflections.
Inspired by Melting Metropolis, the sculpture responds to archival research and community oral histories that illustrate the emergence and impact of urban heat islands in London, Paris, New York and Port of Spain, Trinidad. Around the world, heat is fast becoming the leading cause of weather-related deaths, revealing how our bodies have not evolved to live in cities that are perfectly designed to entrap the Sun. Each pane of My Body is a Sundial integrates these stories alongside the artist’s auto-ethnographic and ‘drawing heat’ practice. Together, they chart a series of conversations through time and space between sun and human, in which moments of clarity illuminate the intensity of solar time, wisdom and warning.
The artwork is both a touring sculptural installation and the stage for Stand of the Sun, a sister-performance that offers a new solstice ritual for a time of climate breakdown.
Exhibitions
2026 The Sun and Moon: Art inspired by the Celestial, Saatchi Gallery, London
2025 Cultural Reforesting, Orleans House Gallery, London
A body that dreams of dawn
“As the heart of our solar system moves through my mid-afternoon body, a body that dreams of dawn as dusk draws closer, the intense pressures of heat, clock-time, uncanny seasons and narrow sight-lines of how to live well, here, now, surface.
We are holding the Sun too close, and yet we need the Sun. We evolved with the Sun. Our bodies contain the Sun. Is there still time to find new ways, or old ways, of being in more harmonious relationship with our closest star?
I notice my shadow. I attend to all that it holds, and the contours of absence and presence it describes. Subtle movements and minute noticings stir, urging this body to re-member ancestral patterns. Rescue my childhood awe. Nurture empathy for a body that has accompanied me throughout; one that is celestial yet also trapped in these cities. One that is ancient and vast beyond comprehension yet also fuel for human systems that are distorting our evolutionary dance.”– Bryony Ella
Photography by Ewelina Ruminska, 2025-26
Melting Metropolis is supported by a Wellcome Discovery Award, grant number 225843/Z/22/Z.
My Body is a Sundial
The body is not only a record of solar time but also of solar intensity; we are fundamentally, sensorially, emotionally and biologically interconnected to our closest star.
My Body is a Sundial is a conversation between two bodies held too close: human and celestial, ricocheting, raging and merging inside hot cities of glass, asphalt and steel. It explores embodied memories of extreme urban heat, reconciling bodily frailty with the artist’s intrinsic and ancient awe for our closest star. Building upon Drawing Heat, a series of walkshops that interwove experimental, sensory-led mark-making with environmental history storytelling, My Body is a Sundial was originally commissioned by the research project Melting Metropolis at the University of Liverpool with Queens College New York.
Encased in metal and cleaved in two, layers of inks merge, sweat, pulse and crawl between a sundial of twelve panels – memories of summers past and present. As the sun travels across the sky, abstract figures suspended in plastic and metal appear and disappear, casting shadows that extend and contract while human and more-than-human visitors alter paintings and sight-lines through their physical presence and reflections.
Inspired by Melting Metropolis, the sculpture responds to archival research and community oral histories that illustrate the emergence and impact of urban heat islands in London, Paris, New York and Port of Spain, Trinidad. Around the world, heat is fast becoming the leading cause of weather-related deaths, revealing how our bodies have not evolved to live in cities that are perfectly designed to entrap the Sun. Each pane of My Body is a Sundial integrates these stories alongside the artist’s auto-ethnographic and ‘drawing heat’ practice. Together, they chart a series of conversations through time and space between sun and human, in which moments of clarity illuminate the intensity of solar time, wisdom and warning.
The artwork is both a touring sculptural installation and the stage for Stand of the Sun, a sister-performance that offers a new solstice ritual for a time of climate breakdown.
Exhibitions
2026 The Sun and Moon: Art inspired by the Celestial, Saatchi Gallery, London
2025 Cultural Reforesting, Orleans House Gallery, London
A body that dreams of dawn
“As the heart of our solar system moves through my mid-afternoon body, a body that dreams of dawn as dusk draws closer, the intense pressures of heat, clock-time, uncanny seasons and narrow sight-lines of how to live well, here, now, surface.
We are holding the Sun too close, and yet we need the Sun. We evolved with the Sun. Our bodies contain the Sun. Is there still time to find new ways, or old ways, of being in more harmonious relationship with our closest star?
I notice my shadow. I attend to all that it holds, and the contours of absence and presence it describes. Subtle movements and minute noticings stir, urging this body to re-member ancestral patterns. Rescue my childhood awe. Nurture empathy for a body that has accompanied me throughout; one that is celestial yet also trapped in these cities. One that is ancient and vast beyond comprehension yet also fuel for human systems that are distorting our evolutionary dance.”– Bryony Ella
Photography by Ewelina Ruminska, 2025-26
Melting Metropolis is supported by a Wellcome Discovery Award, grant number 225843/Z/22/Z.
