‘Suffolk ’til I Die’ is a poem written in quarantine about the love and hate relationship Maddie has with her hometown. Dyslexia runs in her family, so it feels poignant and complex to write about Suffolk, and she is proud to have it read by her Dad and Nana, who are both dyslexic. Extons have been Suffolk labourers for 5 generations and to her, being working class has meant being locked in a learned state of survival mode that is: always working and never dreaming. With art being drilled into her as fruitless, and the working class expectation that she should hate her job and yet be thankful for it, Maddie (and many) have had to unlearn the idea that to be creative is to have failed before you’ve even started. The line “Suffolk in my blood post mortem” talks about an intergenerational loyalty Maddie has to her village that she can’t shake, even if she’s desperate to leave. The visuals of sprinting but getting nowhere are nightmarish and sisyphean, showing how she’d sometimes felt, but also say that mentally, she’ll never really leave. The work is for everyone who, for whatever reason, is in their hometown.

In her own words, Maddie makes things and makes things happen. In other words, she is a conceptual artist and writer based in East Anglia. Her work focuses on examining life, to highlight poetics and connections. She received a scholarship to study Fine Art at Norwich University of the Arts, graduating in 2020, and has exhibited at Mall Galleries (2019), Sluice Biennial (2018) and Norwich and Norfolk Festival (2021).

Instagram: @maddie.ea