With the body of work “Fracking Melons” (2018-2019), Daniel is exploring the multi-layered issues regarding the fracking industry by being part of and documenting the anti-fracking resistance on Preston New Road, Preston in Lancashire.
Since 2011 Cuadrilla Resources has been using hydraulic fracturing trying to extract shale gas from deep within the ground in Lancashire. In October 2018, after a controversial overturn by the government of the Lancashire County Council’s ban on fracking in the area, Cuadrilla restarted the activity at Preston New Road.
Since starting hydraulic fracturing in 2018 and 2019, when the activity was halted, Cuadrilla’s fracking has caused a total of 192 earth tremors which were registered by the British Geological Survey.
On the 11th of December 2018, a tremor of 1.5 magnitude ML on the Richter scale was registered. Cuadrilla Resources dismissed the tremor as dangerous by comparing it to having the same impact as “dropping a melon”, citing research conducted by the University of Liverpool. The activist response was to bring to the gates of Cuadrilla Resources' fracking site melons, and Daniel’s response was to name this work Fracking Melons (57 at the time)– with each melon accounting for each tremor caused by hydraulic fracturing in the area so far.
The work was part of a group show called www.nowhere.uk at Kingston University in 2019. The art installation was made with a display of documents, articles, and images as work in progress and of a printed image of melons photographed at the Cuadrilla Resources gates on Preston New Road, Blackpool, and a dropped (cracked) melon beneath it.
The body of work “Fracking Melons” was selected and exhibited as part of “The Art of Energy Exhibition in February 2021 at the University of St Andrews.