Sugar is Bitterness. Ignorance is Sweet.
‘A spoonful of ignorance’ rails against a wilful misrepresentation of our Imperial past. Coal wasn’t the only substance that drove Britain’s industrial revolution. Sugar provided the fuel for economic expansion -and it’s manufacture necessitated the crime against humanity which was the slave trade. Here, the tripod and three chains made of bent spoons echo the triangular trade route across the Atlantic, and the pot of gold at its apex is a sugar bowl. Orwell would have known very well the history of the sugar dissolving in his tea..
“A Spoonful of Ignorance” Susannah Oliver: tripod, sugar bowl, spoons.