A project sustained over four years The Canary and The Hammer by Lisa Barnard presents a fascinating insight into the history of gold, the process by which it is mined and the effects on those who mine, those that benefit and what this precious metal represents in our world today as a commodity. This is a hard topic to unpick as it comes with a plethora of layers and perspectives around gold as a subject matter – what Barnard does well is combining images, text, collected ephemera in such a way as to illustrate the complexities surrounding the concept and what is at stake.