People sit in a circle having a discussion outdoors on green chairs, they are on grass and there is a stream and trees behind them. There is a slate building and small road in the background.

REFLECTIONS ON THE PLACE COLLECTIVE MEMBERS GATHERING – Kate Gilman Brundrett

Posted on June 11, 2025June 6, 2025 by PLACE Collective admin in members work, SeeHereNow

One thing rings true, repeatedly. We need to connect again, not with the internet but with ourselves, our families, our earth. Perhaps this gathering of people and art practices is just the antidote we need.

It is amazing to be part of the PLACE Collective, and to be one of the exhibiting artists contributing to ‘See Here Now‘. The exhibition brings together work from artists exploring our connection with the planet, the earth, the land. It’s not a ‘pretty’ exhibition – it’s an exhibition asking, investigating, celebrating, hurting – responding to our relationship with our home, and who we are within it.

The exhibition launch coincided with a gathering of PLACE Collective members, with networking, talks and workshops, at Grizedale, and of course, I went along. The day was curated by a PLACE Collective panel – curated beautifully with creative, insightful and embodied interventions to explore and stretch our thinking and our ways of being.

A group of people sit outside, in sunshine, beside a large tree

Having attended a previous PLACE Collective gathering in 2022 I really enjoyed reconnecting with some familiar people – we’d already sparked conversation (and creative friction) in that residency and the ground was prepped for new ideas to emerge. It was also brilliant to meet new members, adding to the tapestry of creative insight and igniting new thinking and new energies.

We connected in different ways throughout two days, beginning with a thinking framework that was beautifully proposed, and gave space for input and replenishment, with thanks to Wallace Heim.

Five pieces of paper attached to a wall, reading Urgency, Touch, Friction, Beauty and Vital Matters. The smaller writing under each title is not legible.

We broke into small groups for some critical thinking inspired by the suggestion of the five themes, and then came back together to discuss the main insights. It was intense! Our brains needed recuperating after that, and a somatic movement session with Jools Gilson was such a wonderful, reconnecting treat. We explored our own sense of space, body and movement, working in pairs and then in sets of four to create an immersive ‘performance’.

The results surprised us all – and led to a lot of smiling and laughter. The elements came together in such an exciting way, one exercise building on the last in gentle momentum until the final delight of sharing and bearing witness to each other’s. Reconnecting with self in this way is a strong reminder to ground ourselves and strengthen our sense of who we are in connection with an other … I’ve since repeated elements of this practice you’ll be pleased to hear Jools!

Our conversations over coffees and lunch were expansive, deep and uplifting – bringing together an eclectic mesh of minds, and refuelling us in a space full of warmth and generosity of ideas.

One thing that brings the group together is the research element of practice. The questions posed by Wallace provided deep reflection and I’ll use those in my own research and explorations.

sowing seeds and energy

The PLACE Collective continues to become a rich field by which seeds can emerge and flourish … a network of nodes bringing many elements to view, and a platform by which to ask, enquire, analyse, propose.

Needless to say, I came away filled up – new lines of thought, connections and my own ‘nodes’ coming together, a reflection on my own practice and a community of inspired and rich minds who generously contributed to the space that is the PLACE Collective.

There are so many other networks and industries that can tap into this energy, this beautiful collective. Here, it feels the soil is being well prepared and becoming fertile for ideas and connectedness in a way that will sustain and be resilient to the world’s collective anxiety, that so many people are feeling just now. And the atmosphere feels open and embracing – not at all exclusive.

It feels the soil is being well prepared and becoming fertile for ideas and connectedness in a way that will sustain and be resilient …

As well as practising as an artists, I’m a leadership coach. I see on a daily basis the struggles that people face, linked with issues such as climate and political threats to humanity, as well as the consequences of sustained desire for commercial, capital, profit and ‘more, more, more’. These manifest in our lives and in our work places, and in our families, as burnout, overwhelm, procrastination, numbness, addiction, mental health epidemics and dis-connection. I often coach as much on ‘how to deal with things’ as on how to make the kind of impact we want to see in the world.

One thing rings true, repeatedly. We need to connect, again, not with the internet but with ourselves, our families, our earth.

Perhaps this gathering of people and art practices is just the antidote we need.

Thanks to Kate Gilman Brundrett for sharing her reflections after the members gathering in April 2025. You can find out more about Kate’s practice here.

Black and white photograph of a dead oak tree standing in a field, live trees are visible behind it and the sky is moody with rolling clouds.

Ghost Trees – Richard Gilbert

Posted on May 9, 2025 by PLACE Collective admin in exhibition, members work, SeeHereNow

This blog explores ‘Ghost Trees’, a project led by Richard Gilbert including work by poet Sara-Jane Arbury and photographer Paul Ligas. Here, Richard delves into the ongoing project, process, and the threat that trees face as a result of human activity, and the image of the ‘seventh’ ghost, the charcoal drawing that is showing as part of the See Here Now exhibition at Grizedale Forest.

I hope this project will encourage more attention on and greater appreciation for these noble sentinels in our landscape. Even when dead, or ghosts of their former selves, they convey majesty, maybe menace, or simply mystery.

Ghost Trees is an ongoing project led by Richard Gilbert, with poet Sara-Jane Arbury and photographer Paul Ligas, commissioned by The National Trust in England that has taken a year to come to fruition. Ghost Trees is a combination of a contemporary art walk with banners installed at seven sites depicting the ghost of a tree through which you can view, as a ghost, the actual tree. Additionally, there is an exhibition of the original drawings, photographs and poetry in Croft Castle, community and individual workshops, and a theatre performance at the Market Theatre Ledbury at Halloween 2024 presenting a virtual tour of the walk with music, word and image.

The purpose was to invite the viewer to bear witness to seven of the magnificent, ancient, dead or dying trees in the landscape of Croft. The walk unites in a timeline a chronology from prehistory to the 21^st century that explores the history of Croft. The aim was to celebrate the past whilst reflecting how trees die before their time through human agency such as climate change or disease. This is hoped to be a reminder of the ever-deepening crisis that faces the human and the natural world.

Depicting Trees

Having drawn and painted the trees at Croft over the years, this project focusing on the ghost trees has been a catalyst to a new understanding. To my mind, each of these particular trees has an individual character that I set out to portray and animate through drawing. Making drawings intended as a banner embedded with text and photography presented its own challenges and prompted a kind of response that developed through the course of the project, shifting mediums from pencil through ink to charcoal.

Perhaps the act of looking closely at and representing the distinctiveness of each tree inevitably lures one into the collective cultural memory bank. Three hundred years of depictions of trees in British art provides the ideal nursery to foster a creative response. Trees are fit subjects in themselves not just as compositional furniture in works of art but standalone subject matter that can invoke narratives about nationhood, politics, family, literature, and much more. This is in addition to the sheer pleasure of admiring the singular majesty of a tree. Climate change, disease and old age have undone so many at Croft but each tree has a story fit to tell about how Croft has endured, each has been a silent witness and perhaps a kind of transfiguration in the minds of many through the ages.

Heritage and loss

As one of the least wooded countries in Europe, 13% of our land area is wooded compared to 35% in Germany. The British cultural relationship to trees is, in part, informed by the loss of wooded habitats, field, and hedgerow trees to agriculture and infrastructure projects. The vulnerability of these individual trees, especially ancient trees, makes them icons of our heritage. Ancient trees are now largely confined to places like National Trust parks.

The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) is a membership Union of government and civil society organisations that work to advance sustainable development in a way that values and conserves nature. At the October 2024 ICUN conference in Cali, Columbia it was announced that of the 57,000 species of trees in the world, more than one in three tree species worldwide faces extinction. Thirty-eight per cent of the world’s trees are at risk of extinction according to the first Global Tree Assessment, lost to logging, agriculture, and infrastructure. To put that into the context of the UK, we have 86 species of trees and 35 are on the threatened list including rowan, whitebeam, pines, birches, junipers and more.

We are living in a time of crisis where the volatility of the climate threatens on many fronts. Tree diseases, pests and pathogens, pesticides, invasive species, changes in the growing season and increased rainfall are all potential hazards for woodland. Here we have evident examples, Camelthorn trees in the Kalahari that cannot grow in the arid baked clay; 42 million acres of Whitebark Pine lost in 10 states across the Rockies decimated by the mountain pine beetle that now advance to higher altitudes or drowned forests on the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Ghost Trees was launched at Croft Castle on Friday 21 June 2024. The exhibition at the Castle Stables is open until 31 October 2025, and the Ghost Trees art walk in the Croft parkland will be in place until early 2026.

Find out more about Richard Gilbert’s practice here.

A wide expanse of wet sand fills the image, the sky is grey and on the horizon there are small hills. In the background two figures riding horses can be seen. In the foreground there is a dip in the sand creating a puddle that reflects the sky. in the centre of the puddle is a small circular bank of grass.

Sediment, 2023 – Debbie yare

Posted on April 5, 2025April 4, 2025 by PLACE Collective admin in exhibition, members work

Debbie Yare brings her video piece Sediment to the SEE HERE NOW exhibition. In this blog post she gives some insight into the process and meaning behind her ongoing research.

This work forms part of ongoing research into salt marsh and mudflat erosion, climate change and coastal regeneration along Morecambe Bay. It also looks at how questions emerge and how knowledge is created through creative practice. Particularly through sustained, daily, situated practice. My practice is engaged in exploring human and more than human interconnectedness and this is present throughout the film, sometimes through surprising encounters along the way.

The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology state that “Since the mid-1800s, we have lost approximately 85% salt marsh” [sic]. Whilst making Sediment, I furthered my research into why this has occurred through walks and talks with scientists and academics from local universities, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, and collaborative work on Our Future Coast. I made Sediment independently but it contains learning and questions that emerged through that process.

Last year I was able to show the work with Spark Artists Network and delivered a talk along with it. The film does not contain a voice over – just environmental sounds. However, many people suggested that the speaking was powerful and interwove with the film very well, so I may add a voice track moving forwards.

Small brown waves crash into the green coast, water splashes upwards as the they meet. The sky is grey and hills can be seen in the background.

Over a sandy beach an open palm holds sand, grains fall through the fingers.

A woman walks across a rocky mountain range, facing away. She has a pole in each hand and is carrying a dark rucksack. Ahead of her glaciers cover the mountains in front of a blue sky.

Into the abyss – Anna Sharpe

Posted on April 1, 2025March 30, 2025 by PLACE Collective admin in exhibition, members work

Anna Sharpe brings her artwork Into The Abyss Two to the SEE HERE NOW exhibition. This was created during her descent into the Gran Paradissio Glacier in the Alps. Here she describes the descent, and the background to her art piece.

In my explorations (on both foot and paper) I investigate the ungraspable magic of the ephemeral and explore the relationship between change and loss.

Walking through the landscape and with the fluid lines of a brush I contemplate my position in the ebb and flow of a land that spans times beyond human comprehension.

2.54 million years ago the ground we stand on was covered in ice. More recently, from 12,900 to 11,700 years ago, a localised glacial phase was carving out some additional features in the Lake District, where I live. Consequently wind, rain, heat and cold have eroded away the finishing touches.

In the Alps, giant glacial ice structures still cling to jagged peaks. I have been drawn to these great features ever since childhood holidays to the French and Austrian alps. Alongside my sense of wonder for glaciers, a sneaking sadness has been growing. Whilst the summers get hotter, and the winters shorter these great ice structures are becoming smaller. As a mountaineer, I have learnt the hard way that that the alpine landscape has changed vastly over the last decade; often a large area of glacier on the map has been replaced by a dessert of loose rock and scree; the initial pitch to a rock route as described in a guidebook can only be accessed by first climbing smooth, featureless glacial-worn rock, that until recently was covered in ice.

Gathering the experiential data for ‘Into the abyss’ – A journey into the Gran Paradiso Glacier

On the 16^th August 2023, Rachel, my patient and understanding friend, awoke in her campervan as the sky just began to lighten, silhouetting the surrounding jagged peaks of Valsavarenche. The air was cool and we made fast progress up the winding forest path, then beyond the treeline to the Rifugio Chabod hut at an altitude of 2,710 metres. Lingering here we could see the great grey-white form of the glacier ahead of us. As we continued up the dwindling rocky track, the first rays of the sun cut across the eastern horizon and the blue of the alpine sky intensified.

The lower section of the Gran Paradiso Glacier is a dry glacier, meaning that its icy structure is laid bare: there is no blanket of snow to cover the crevasses or sprinklings of rock and boulders. Putting our crampons on and getting a rope ready, we ventured onto the initially rocky, then icy, surface, in search of a suitable crevasse to explore. I laughed and joked to conceal feelings of trepidation. I was comfortable with my skillset for the venture and more than assured of Rachel’s competence, yet I couldn’t beat the uneasy feeling in my stomach. Glaciers are huge bodies of flowing ice, they move too slowly for the eye to see, but you can hear them creak and crack as bits warm up, as they shift, and as released ice or rock falls – booming down into the depths of a crevasse.

Descent

Once we had identified an appropriate crevasse, Rachel and I set up an anchor consisting of three ice screws, attached the rope and sent it down the crevasses. And then it was my turn to descend. My trepidations morphed into excitement as I slowly abseiled into the abyss.

Lowering myself deeper I discover a creaking world far older and greater than my small human ego. A cold world of blues, greens and greys. A world of sculptural lines and abstract forms. A world of trickling water, silence and my heartbeat.

A woman abseils down a crevasse in a glacier wearing a helmet, sunglasses, a blue fleece, and black trousers. She is surrounded by grey and white ice.

A loud crashing noise reverberated through the glacier around me and startled me from my revery. I called up to Rachel before remembering that she couldn’t hear me. Feeling panicked and alone, I began to prussic my way back up the rope. This process was long and cumbersome. Finally emerging back into the sunshine, panic melted away and was replaced by elation. The crashing noise was rockfall on the far side of the glacier, a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly frequent as the permafrost that glues the Alps together melts in the ever-warmer climate. From within the glacier however, it had felt so loud and close, like the whole body of ice was responding as one.

Respecting the fragility of the alpine environment we weaved our way between crevasses and off the glacier descending to the hut. I was giddy with joy and bouncing with gratitude for this unique experience.

A black and white image of a woman standing in front of a rock face, she wears outdoor gear, sandals, and is holding climbing shoes. There is a rucksack on the floor in front of her.

To find out more about Anna’s approach to her artistic practice, and its links with climbing, watch this video. While Anna spends a lot of time in the Alps, where the glaciers are retreating, this video takes a particular focus on the Lake District.

Anna Sharpe’s Profile is here.

Naomi Hart – inspired by the convex seascape survey

Posted on March 23, 2025March 30, 2025 by PLACE Collective admin in environment and climate, exhibition, members work, SeeHereNow

Naomi Hart is artist in residence with The Convex Seascape Survey, a pioneering collaboration of world-leading scientists working to quantify and understand blue carbon stored in the coastal ocean floor, the effects of marine life upon it, and how this might impact rates of climate change. Her paintings ‘Amphiura chiajei‘ (brittlestar), ‘Cerastoderma edule’ (common cockle), and ‘Nephtys caeca’ (catworm), will be on display at the SEE HERE NOW exhibition.

A team of researchers from the University of Exeter, alongside project collaborators at the University of Southampton, have been studying benthic invertebrates – worms, shellfish and similar creatures – that live in the mud beneath the sea. These invertebrates form a vital, but unseen ecosystem, which may be critically important in our fight against climate change. The tiny creatures create tunnels and burrows in seabed sediments, bioturbating (mixing) the mud, and moving nutrients and carbon within the mud to create a unique seabed habitat, the world’s largest carbon sink.

Naomi has been working alongside these researchers for two years, involved in and documenting all aspects of the research: hauling mud from the bottom of the sea, identifying sea creatures, and witnessing complex, delicate chemical measurements in the laboratory. She created action sketches of the researchers collecting samples of ocean bottom dwelling invertebrates while at sea.

Naomi studied the invertebrates under a microscope and then created pigment from the sea sediment, by heating it to different temperatures. This has led to a unique colour range completely specific to the waters around the Isle of Cumbrae, where the research took place, so with a nod to traditional earth colours like ‘Raw Umber’ and ‘Burnt Umber’, she has named the pigments ‘Raw Cumbrae’ and ‘Burnt Cumbrae’.

To extend the palette, she also experimented with white chalk made from dissolving sea-shells in acid/lemon juice – mimicking ocean acidification as the oceans warm – and has created highly detailed ‘portraits’ of the invertebrates out of the actual mud in which they live. Hugely magnified, these creatures may seem like aliens from another world, but they are found in our oceans, creating tunnels and burrows in the mud and drawing down nutrients and carbon in the world’s largest carbon sink. The colours themselves demonstrate the capacity of the sediment to hold nutrients and carbon: Raw Cumbrae is a mid-greybrown; as it is heated, the organic matter begins to burn and darken, and reveal the carbon stored within. Further heating burns off this carbon entirely to reveal the iron-rich red sandstone of the underlying geology.

Through these paintings, Naomi hopes to raise awareness of these incredible creatures and the vitally important habitat they create.

Naomi has also worked with The Convex Seascape Survey to run art workshops for adults and children, making muddy sea creatures in clay and with mud-paint, with researchers on hand to explain the science behind the project.

The work has been exhibited in Exeter, Penryn, Falmouth, Bristol and at the Royal Geographical Society in London. For more information about the invertebrates, you can read about them here.

The Convex Seascape Survey seeks to discover exactly how the ocean performs its vital role as the world’s largest carbon sink. Over five years, the project will not only scrutinise the carbon locked in the continental shelf seabeds but will assess the role of ocean life on carbon storage, as well as assessing human influences on seabed carbon. Funded by Convex Group Ltd., the project is facilitated by Blue Marine Foundation, with science led by the University of Exeter in collaboration with partners.

Find out more about Naomi Hart here: Naomi Hart.

An exhibition space with white walls, a concrete floor, and a door in the back with a window. There is a corridor at the back of the room with grey stone walls. On the left wall there are three frames images. Hanging by the door is a piece made from remnant textiles with sandy pink tones. Another similar textile piece is hung on the right hand wall, so close to the front of the image you can only see a little bit of it.

Standing Stone/Oil Rig – Siobhan McLaughlin

Posted on March 18, 2025March 19, 2025 by PLACE Collective admin in exhibition, members work

Siobhan McLaughlin brings her piece Standing Stone/Oil rig to the SEE HERE NOW exhibition. The work asks ‘what do we really see when we slow down and how can this help us care for our land and each other?’ Read on for more.

An image of a textile showing blocks of colour from earth pigments and oil paint

This work considers land use and mineral extraction, as well as mending and care at a bodily scale. It is made from paintings woven with remnant textiles gathered from the landscapes and communities I meet.

Earth gathered with care from Cornish mining run-off is ground into paint to form the image of a decommissioned oil rig on the Black Isle, where the Cromarty Firth has become a kind of graveyard for decommissioned structures.

By using a material palette so connected to the earth, the work asks ‘what do we really see when we slow down and how can this help us care for our land and each other?’.

The following text is an excerpt from Belongings, a piece by Martin Holman written in response to McLaughlin’s show Pilgrimages at  Hweg gallery, Penzance 22nd November 2024 – 11th January 2025.

‘If you aestheticise too much,’ says Siobhan McLaughlin, ‘you risk ignoring landscapes for their ecological, social and labour values.’ While toil is not the main subject of this artist’s work within the genre of landscape painting, the presence of labour is nonetheless a notable feature. She approaches the task of making imagery by realising in materiality her visual experiences of the external world. They become manifest through the acts of seeing, touching and being. McLaughlin describes her objective as creating non-traditional landscape painting. For her, that means deviating from the quintessentially British tendency to romanticise the ‘view’ or the ‘experience’ of nature. Because historically ‘landscape’ has been perceived in many instances as a visual salve. The result has been, and I imagine McLaughlin will agree, that notions of the ‘land’, as a product of constant movement by nature and man, has been lost – or, at best, downplayed.

By contrast, her images are constructed with an interrelationship of means. Material layers seem to correspond with physical sensations. We might recognise in the complex edges and surfaces of her work our own encounters with a dramatic natural environment. That experience is inevitably fractured and multidimensional, made up of air, land and sea and the visual tapestry of the piecemeal subdivisions. Mankind has parcelled land into fields and moors, and altered borders to suit changing needs and ownerships, so that echoes of previous patterns remain as vague imprints.

Read the full essay here.

A rectangle of remnant fabric sewn together hanging from the ceiling of a gallery. The fabric is painted with oil paints in cool pink and grey tones, with some patches of blue. The room has white walls, grey cement floor, and a wooden beam on one side of the ceiling.

Three images next to each other, the first is a faint yellow imprint left on paper where a daffodil head had been pressed, the second is a stronger brown silhouette of a daffodil head, the third has a yellow imprint with a black outline of a daffodil overlaid.

How to Draw: A Daffodil Triptych – Camilla Nelson

Posted on March 14, 2025March 13, 2025 by PLACE Collective admin in exhibition, members work

Camilla Nelson brings Daffodil Tryptych (2023) to the SEE HERE NOW exhibition. In this post, Camilla describes her process and shares some of the questions it prompts.

What is the cost of human art making and reproduction to the world we seek to celebrate with our representations?

What is the shadow ecology embedded within our making?

Daffodils have occupied a key place in the popular imagination of English landscape since Wordsworth’s “daffodil” poem (“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”) secured their popularity in 1807. Who speaks in these representations? The loudest voice, in this work, is the black pen on the white paper (a combination of bleached tree and plastic, oil-based marker pen). The black line is the voice of human agency using natural materials as a mouthpiece. So often, the human representation of another life form entails the death, destruction, damage, silencing, drawing out or over of the nonhuman form. 

Faint marks from a daffodil flower pressed onto white paper

A dried and pressed daffodil, brown in colour, laid over paper with faint traces of handwriting

In How to Draw: A Daffodil Triptych (2023), the black line drawn on paper was pressed together with daffodil heads to produce two further works: one is an imprint made by the colour leached from the daffodil flower and the black pen lines of its human representation; the other is a ghostly imprint, a paper shroud, where the form of the daffodil heads, now absent, leave their indent in the page. Through this printing process, something of the flowers is drawn out or into the paper leaving a tangle of responses to the human effort to remake them, a quiet speaking back to or about what happens, the silent costs, of this process of representation. 

This seemingly innocuous work asks what the cost of human art making and reproduction is to the world we seek to celebrate with our representations. What is the shadow ecology embedded within our making?

Find out more about Camilla Nelson here: Camilla Nelson.

a woman in a red dress stands in a pool of water, with grey sky

Tree felling / weathering – Jools Gilson

Posted on March 11, 2025March 11, 2025 by PLACE Collective admin in exhibition, members work, SeeHereNow

In this Long Read, Jools Gilson shares the background to the collaborative work ‘Weathering’, which took a lost forest as its inspiration. The audio recording of Jools’ performance is shared in the Grizedale Exhibition: here, Jools recounts the story of its long, long production.

Thinking about this lost forest, this performance and the exhibition at Grizedale, I know that this tangling of time and presence enchants story and place in ways which feel urgent. Because all of this process of being present in front of you or being present in a beautifully shot tree, speaks to loss and the possibility of regeneration through poetic text and play.

In the early months of 2020, I started work on a collaborative multi-screen performance project called Weathering directed by the Dance Artist and Film maker Mary Wycherley. I was asked to be part of the creative team because of my writing and performance skills.

The project was focussed on The Gearagh / An Gaorthadh in West Cork, an 11,000 year-old submerged glacial woodland. When it was felled in the 1950s to make way for the building of two hydroelectric dams, it was the last surviving full oak forest in Western Europe. In 2023, the remains of this river forest survive as stumps emerging from the floodwater. Our initial work involved studio based explorations and visits to The Gearagh itself. Soon after we began, the pandemic halted work for two years, although we did meet online. I continued to write, and when restrictions allowed, I would visit The Gearagh, which is about 30 miles from where I live in Cork City in Ireland. Eventually, the film shoot in The Gearagh was scheduled for April 2022 and the work was premiered just under a year later at Dance Limerick in March 2023. Weathering was a resonant hybrid work with a distinctive exploration of the space between film and liveness. It included film on two screens, live performance / choreography, sound and voice.

The Gearagh is an unsettling place. Villages were evacuated to make way for the flooding, whole communities moved away. The outlines of the cut trees are often black against the reflection of the sky in the water.

There is an older history too – of a place where strangers would lose their bearings – lost amongst rivulet after rivulet – the distinctive ecology of an alluvial river valley. Sometimes there were deer here, and rare forms of plant and animal life. And so I visited alone, often walking out past the place where the village shop used to be, out beyond the haunts of walkers. I took photographs and notes, and then I wrote Tree Felling. Writing this was powerfully bound up in movement, both my own in research trips to the Gearagh, but also speculative history. Whatever else, the ESB (Ireland’s Electricity Supply Board) provided work at a time when it was scarce. These trees were mostly felled by hand, and I combined this with the glistening and discomfort of teenage boys. I wanted to tangle these accidents of history with the overwhelming living complexity of an old-growth oak tree.

A woman in a red dress stands with her back to the camera in a lake. The sky is grey and there are spall tree covered hills in the background.

A year or so later, I’m driving to the second day of the film shoot for Weathering on location in The Gearagh. I know that Mary would like me to speak Tree Felling whilst walking into the flooded river, amidst the stumps of the old forest.

I’ve brought my wetsuit and wet shoes to put on under my red dress, but even so I’m concerned about the cold. I have to recite my text whilst only being able to do one take because the dress will be getting wet and it’s a chilly April afternoon.

The sound guy wires me up with a microphone and a battery pack concealed under the dress – best not fall over either. It’s a lot, but here I go. I walk into the water and begin to perform. Amazingly, I manage to get through the text and the water, and they’re happy with the take. As I turn towards the camera at the end, a fish jumps close to me.

It’s almost a year later and I drive to Limerick for the premiere of this long-delayed work. Mary had told me that she wanted to work live on two of the texts I’d performed for the shoot – Tree Felling and Pearl Mussel. It’s a strange thing for someone who regularly performs her own writing that it isn’t that easy for me to learn and then re-learn my own text. I record it on my phone, and then listen over and over again as I’m walking to work, or up and down the hallway if I’m at home. For me these processes of walking whilst acquiring the embodiment of voiced text that arose from my body is disconcerting but also delicious. Something of the rhythm of it stays with me. I am less afraid of performance than I was when I was younger, I think because I trust my own body more, and inviting writing back into my flesh is somehow more comfortable.

Dance Limerick is a converted protestant church. When I arrive into busy rehearsals, there are two screens positioned at an angle. I greet the dancers quietly, warm up and wait to be called. I have re-learnt Tree Felling as I have been asked, and soon it is my turn to rehearse. It is only then that I begin to understand what Mary would like me to do. She would like me to perform the first part of Tree Felling live in front of the audience, whilst the film of me entering the water is behind me, but I am out of focus, and the stumps of trees are in focus. There is a certain point where I come sharply into focus as I turn. What Mary wants is for there to be a seamless crossover between my live performance voice / presence into the filmed voice / presence, and it’s only then that I realise that the text I have learnt isn’t going to work for this performance.

When you have one take and it’s an Irish April and you have a wetsuit and a microphone power pack under your dress, your navigation of the script will likely be a bit creative. I’ve been performing for decades and I knew I needed to get a good take in one go, but funnily enough the text wasn’t spoken exactly as I had written it, and so I drove back to Cork from this rehearsal and reflected. I realised that if I was going to conjure a seamless shift between live performance and this filmed performance, the text I had written wasn’t any good to me, I needed the exact text I had spoken on that day when I walked into the river in The Gearagh amidst the ghosts of the old forest. Mary had given me the audio recording from the film, and I listened and listened again and transcribed this, and drove back to Limerick for the dress rehearsal armed with a plan. There was an introductory section that I would speak live to audience, whilst the film played upstage from me, there was another section where I had to be precisely in synchronicity with the film, and there was a section where I left the stage and the Jools filmed in the river finished the text. Because I couldn’t see the film, I could only do this if I had a live audio feed of the original film sound recording played into my ear and because I also needed to have my voice amplified by a microphone to sound qualitatively the same as the film, I’d need two battery packs under the red dress (but no wet suit). We rehearsed, there was much discussion, and we tried it and tried it again. We thought it would work. I’ve never performed with an audio recording in my ear, let alone one that was from a previous on location film shoot. I learnt that during the first section I didn’t have to be completely in synch with the recording, but could use it as a guide, I knew the section where I was about to need to be absolutely in synch, and then the part when I would leave my ghost behind. That evening at the premiere, it worked. There was a magical moment, where voice, writing, presence were somehow blurred between present tense and the past of the recorded film.

Thinking about this lost forest, this performance and the exhibition at Grizedale, I know that this tangling of time and presence enchants story and place in ways which feel urgent. Because all of this process of being present in front of you or being present in a beautifully shot tree, speaks to loss and the possibility of regeneration through poetic text and play.

A woman with dark curly hair and a red dress stands in front of a a large screen or projected image facing to the left of the frame.

A woman in a red dress stands with her back to the viewer, in front of a screen showing an image of herself. A cellist sits to her right.

A sense of flora: Daksha Patel

Posted on March 7, 2025March 11, 2025 by PLACE Collective admin in exhibition, members work, SeeHereNow

Daksha Patel brings her artwork Tree Against Hunger to the SEE HERE NOW exhibition. This post describes the context for this piece, which was created during the project A Sense of Flora.

A Sense of Flora was an artist-led project delivered in partnership with Manchester Museum and Rainbow Haven, a charity which supports asylum seekers and refugees. It explored the inter-relationships between a sense of place and flora – particularly food crops which are intricately connected to cultural memories, traditions and practices. Themes of food security and climate change informed the artist’s research process.

Crops for the Future

During the first phase of the project, Daksha explored botany collections at Manchester Museum with curator Rachel Webster, focussing upon ‘crops for the future’ – important varieties which scientists have identified as having remarkable versatility such as drought resistance, flood tolerance or disease tolerance. The artist’s early sketches of collections were eventually developed into large-scale digital drawings of three key plants: Sesbania grandiflora, Sechium edule, and Ensete ventricosum. Ensete ventricosum is widely grown in small holdings in Ethiopia and known as ‘The tree against hunger’; researchers at Kew Gardens point to the importance of protecting indigenous knowledge to support food security in the face of climate change. Crops such as Sesbania grandiflora not only provide food for humans and livestock, but also have potential to be used for medicinal purposes. Sechium edule is very vigorous in growth, and the whole plant – leaves and pods – are edible, proving a very versatile food source.

A digital illustration of a plant with pink and white flowers, small green leaves, and yellow pods. The background is brown with illustrations of cells. There is text at which reads 'Flamingo bill. Tiger tongue. Agathi. Bakphul. Sesbania grandiflora'.

A digital illustration of a plant with a bulbous yellow fruit, small yellow flowers, green leaves and curling tendrils. There is a brown back drop with illustrations of cells. The text reads: 'Chayote. Choko. Machuchu. Custard marrow. Sechium edule'.

Daksha’s digital prints include a list of names for each plant – its classification under the Linnaean system as well as its local names, which vary across different regions. The local names are wonderfully evocative of each place. In the background to each print, clouds of microscopic pollens allude to the ongoing scientific research into the genetic diversity of food crops and its potential to strengthen food security.

Participatory workshops

During the next phase of the project, Daksha delivered a series of art workshops at Rainbow Haven, focussing upon flora. Participants shared their stories and memories of favourite fruits, vegetables, trees or flowers from their countries of origin. They made colourful prints and added hand-written texts in different languages (Amharic, Arabic, English, Farsi, Kurdish, Tigrinya and Urdu) with English translations, giving wonderful insights into how a sense of place is intertwined with flora. The workshop aims included addressing barriers of isolation & social exclusion, encouraging self-expression and well-being through creative activities exploring sense of place & identity connected to flora & the natural environment.

At the top of the image there is half a block print of a mango in orange. Beneath that there is Urdu text followed by the English translation.

Handwritten Arabic text describing jasmine growing in Syria, followed by the English translation. Below this is a green print of a jasmine leaf.

Mango is known as the king of fruits. This is very tasty. There were mango gardens near my house, you feel very good when you pass from the garden [and] you get to eat fresh mangoes. Even today it takes me back to my childhood if I see the mangoes.

Jasmine has a beautiful scent. It is used for perfume. When I smell them I feel very good. This flower grows in my country Syria. It is in every house.

Exhibition

The final stage of the project was the opening of A Sense of Flora exhibition at Manchester Museum in August 2024. It comprised of a large-scale print installation of all participants artworks alongside three new digital prints by artist Daksha Patel. On the opening day, participants and their families were invited to language specific tours of the museum – it was a very enjoyable day for all! There was a tremendous sense of pride and empowerment as participants visited the exhibition of their artwork in a public cultural space in Manchester. Museum visitors were fascinated to read the hand-written texts which accompanied prints; they helped to raise public understanding of the diverse experiences of asylum seekers and refugees through the language of plants, which we all share.

A table laden with pieces of paper side by side. On the paper there are block prints of plants in various colours and handwritten text. In the background there are two windows.

Watch Daksha Patel explain the project further in this video:

exhibition news!!

Posted on March 3, 2025March 11, 2025 by somewhere nowhere in events, exhibition, members work, SeeHereNow

SEE HERE NOW – EXHIBITION APRIL 4 – JUNE 8

After a long time planning, a group of PLACE Collective artists will be exhibiting work in the stunning galleries of Grizedale Forest, Cumbria, in response to the theme of Art in a Time of Urgency.

All of our practices are concerned with better understanding and caring for the living world – yet in a time of increasingly frequent severe weather events, melting glaciers, political instability, and a critical need for nature recovery, what might artists do? What work do we create, what questions do we ask, what stories do we tell? What might we do differently?

MEET THE ARTISTS AND JOIN THE EXHIBITION PREVIEW, APRIL 5TH

Mark your diaries for a visit, and watch out for blog posts in the coming weeks featuring insights from exhibiting artists.

Exhibiting in Grizedale Forest is to build on a legacy of thoughtful and often boundary-pushing art. It’s a privilege to bring an exhibition to this venue, and while not all work centres on the forest, or even on trees, some artists have chosen to create work in and in response to Grizedale Forest – more will be revealed when the show opens.

More about the exhibition … head over to the exhibition page here!

A man stands looking at the sunrise through some trees. There is a table beside him with a rock, and paper ready for sketching.

A pen and ink drawing of a glacier, with blue and purple colours

_{Images: Left to right featuring Simon Hitchens, Anna Sharpe, Bryony Ella, Daksha Patel, Siobhan McGlaughlin, Richard Gilbert}

_{Main image: Jools Gilson in Weathering by Mary Wycherley (2023). Photography by Marcin Lewandowski.}

Keeping the “-ing” in Extending Ecology

Posted on November 29, 2023November 29, 2023 by somewhere nowhere in art research, members work

Guest Blog from Rita Leduc

Artist Rita Leduc has been co-imaging and co-creating with other humans and with a forest for some time now. In this blog, she reflects on the intersection – and coexistence of intelligences – and how her practice continues to ask questions. Including but not limited to, how can we be guided by the natural world, and how can we treat our work as something that’s constantly unfolding, not something that focuses on endings?

*^{Rita Leduc and Dr. Rich Blundell in Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (White Mountains, NH)}*

Keeping the “-ing” in Extending Ecology, by Rita Leduc

“The nature of nature is that it’s dynamic and relational. It doesn’t stop nor end, and it does not follow a linear trajectory.

The Oika project, Extending Ecology, is an ongoing collaboration between an ecologist (Dr. Rich Blundell), an artist (myself), and a forest (Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest). The methodology of our project is for the ecologist and artist to share their individual ways of understanding with each other and the forest through the lens of Oika: a philosophy of ecological intelligence. This philosophy includes concepts and practices that span science, deep natural history, creativity, and contemplation. The intention of the project is for the humans to function as emissaries of the forest, activating their own rigorous, multimodal participation to acutely absorb and prudently extend nature’s intelligence into culture.

The intention of the project is for the humans to function as emissaries of the forest …

Six months into this project, curator Meghan Doherty approached us to have an exhibition at the Museum of the White Mountains at Plymouth State University. Throughout the following eighteen months, the three of us had countless sessions to determine how this exhibition could hold, and be an extension of, the living, unfolding project – which is a direct extension of the living, unfolding forest.

Simultaneously nurturing the project’s development with the exhibition’s development required us to be on our most ecological behavior. We managed it with sensitivity and fluidity, allowing the exhibition to form within the context of the project…which, as stated, forms within the context of the forest. So as long as we could establish and maintain that continuity authentically, the forest would design the exhibition. And without diminishing the heroic efforts of human team members, being designed by the forest is actually exactly how I would describe the way in which this exhibition came about.

*^{Curator Dr. Meghan Doherty with Rita and Rich in Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest}*

“Extending Ecology: Making Meaning with the White Mountains” opened at the Museum of the White Mountains on October 7, 2023. It was a celebratory moment, but as we paused to honor this achievement, I felt the not-so-subtle elevation of an ever-present consideration. If Extending Ecology is going to remain continuous with nature, then like nature it must remain dynamic and ongoing. Unlike many exhibitions, this one is not presenting a culmination but rather an ongoing sharing-thus-far. So, the project’s dynamism rose to the fore: as we present the project-thus-far to the public, how do we keep the exhibition from feeling like the project’s conclusion? How do we keep the project living and unfolding, like the nature from which it came? How do we keep the “-ing” in extending? It’s a question I’ve granted myself the duration of the exhibition to deliberate.

If Extending Ecology is going to remain continuous with nature, then like nature it must remain dynamic and ongoing.

*^{“Extending Ecology: Making Meaning with the White Mountains,” exhibition documentation from The Museum of the White Mountains, Plymouth New Hampshire}*

Now halfway through the run of the show, my sense is that the above consideration is the same challenge as the exhibition but in reverse. Instead of taking a living thing and putting our fingers on it just enough to open a cohesive exhibition, we need to lift our fingers just enough to let it breathe, evolve, extend. So, much like navigating the forest without a trail, we have spent the last month looking up, scanning the landscape, and sensing the direction toward which the project wants to continue. Furthermore, we are trusting that sense, feeding it, and allowing it to feed us.

Feed us it is. Multiple directions have emerged, all brimming with possibility. There is a feeling of not just extension but motion. Extending and moving, all while necessarily remaining studiously (and joyfully) tethered to our firsthand relationships with this particular forest.

So what’s my point here, why is this worth examining? I believe this question is more than just an interesting challenge in an outcome-oriented world. Rather, I believe it is a challenge we should be taking on more often, in all spaces and across all scales. At the innermost core of my being is an impulse to participate with the living world. Not with the surface-level stuff slathered on top but rather with what Oika refers to as the creative life force from which we all come and are all made. Extending Ecology is a case study in Oika’s thesis that if we sincerely, deeply allow ourselves to be guided by nature, it will teach us how to cultivate life.

… if we sincerely, deeply allow ourselves to be guided by nature, it will teach us how to cultivate life.

There is ending and there is extending. One is narrow, determinate and final. The other is boundless, adaptive, and vivacious. In this moment of social, ecological, and technological precipice, honing the wisdom to feel the difference and choose the latter is well worth our time.”

^{Documentation of Extending Ecology extensions (Gallery talks and Oika Art+Science Leadership workshops at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest and Clark Reservation)}

For more about Rita, visit Rita’s PLACE Collective Profile here, and follow links to her website.

You may also be interested in reading this piece: Rita in conversation, with Canvas Rebel.

A series of coloured circles and writing arranged over a map of watercourses and named 'ALL THESE TRUTHS OVERLAP'

watershed exhibition catalogue

Posted on August 8, 2023November 29, 2023 by somewhere nowhere in art research, community, members work

An exhibition comes to life when it’s installed, provoking conversations and offering food for thought. But that can’t go on forever. And the Watershed exhibition was a ‘pop-up’, in place for only a few days. So for those who didn’t catch it we’ve created a catalogue that you can view online or download as a PDF.

Head over to the Exhibition Catalogue page to access the PDF and discover the work of the five artists who took part in Watershed: Kate Gilman Brundrett, Harriet Fraser, Rob Fraser, Matt Sharman and Sarah Smout.

A hand-drawn map of Bolton Fell Moss in Cumbria with words and images, by Helen Cann

Mapping a Moss of many layers

Posted on November 24, 2022August 1, 2023 by somewhere nowhere in art inspiration, art research, BoltonFellMoss, members work, protected landscapes

One of the main artistic outputs from the Moss of Many Layers project is the map of Bolton Fell Moss created by Helen Cann. This post put together by Harriet Fraser gives a behind-the-scenes look at Helen’s process, and how the map came into being.

Helen’s map not only shows the history of the moss, but also the present, documenting the ongoing upkeep of the Moss, and the hoped-for future as restoration brings rewards. The layers of time – past, present and future – were important in Helen’s thinking.

The map shares stories from local residents and insights from scientists, and portrays the wildlife communities that have returned to the moss since extraction ceased and are likely to thrive as their habitats improve. It’s a thing of beauty, something that draws you in.

Detail of a handdrawn map of Bolton Fell Moss by Helen Cann. The image contains words (View point and Old Mill) and images of people, with description of the formation of peat over a ten thousand year period

When the original map was shared at the Wide Open Day it was like a magnet – people gathered around it, pointed out things they recognised, new information that surprised them, and used it as a catalyst to share further stories. The map is hand-drawn, in wonderful detail. When further infrastructure is in place on Bolton Fell Moss, and accessible via the boardwalk, a reproduction of the map will be in place. We can’t wait to see it there!

Three people stand with their backs to the camera, while they look at a large map of Bolton Fell Moss

Helen’s process

Helen compiled the map over a number of months. As well as visiting the site (which she reflects on in her blog here), Other artist researchers in the team shared recordings with her, so she could listen to interviews with people who used to work on the site when peat was extracted and ecologists and rangers who are now monitoring recovery of vegetation, and the return of wildlife. And Helen had conversations with the scientists, restoration specialists and others on the Moss of Many Layers team. This approach is new to Helen, and it’s great to see how rewarding it has been.

‘I have rarely worked with an inter-disciplinary team before other than being given access to historian or curatorial research notes, for example. Moss of Many Layers gave me the opportunity to have face to face talks with experts. The site visit was fantastic and vital in understanding the land and being able to have conversations with experts in the field.’

Images and writing from a map created by Helen Cann of Bolton Fell Moss. Images include a hare, a curlew, a girl and a digger

The inter-disciplinary nature of this project impacted the approach of all the researchers, with a level of responsiveness that relied on iterative learning and conversations. ‘My experience as an illustrator means my practice involves following a brief and then delivering as near to the agreed brief as possible. In this case, I created my own brief and then followed through.’

A woman and two men are looking at a peat sample taken from 9 metres beneath the surface of a raised mire.

When we talked about this, Helen reflected that this is quite unusual – but worked perfectly. Each artist began with a loose framework (in Helen’s case, to draw a map) and then let their work evolve according to ongoing learning from visits to the site and from other people. Helen’s visit to Bolton Fell Moss caused her to change some of her initial ideas (and do a fair amount of rubbing out!). This doesn’t happen often in her work. ‘In the future, it might be good to allow myself space for more ‘idea bouncing’ and the flexibility to change course from the initial brief if my thoughts develop or I’m inspired to go in other directions. In general, I’m not sure how acceptable this is for stakeholders if they’ve a been promised a particular outcome – I’d never do this as an illustrator but it’s good to know how/if this works within an art context.’ Perhaps this is a key difference between pure illustration and research-led illustrative artwork, where the shape, detail and overall feel of a piece, can alter along the way: it’s responsive. You can read more about Helen’s reflections on her process on her website here.

One of the aims of the Moss of Many Layers project was for the various pieces of artwork to reflect learning, rather than an aim for a predetermined outcome. We’re really happy that this is what happened – and when all the work is compiled and made available we’ll share a link to it through the project page.

Encountering the unexpected

I asked Helen if anything unexpected happened for her. This was her answer:

‘ – the realisation that the Moss was in a constant state of flux, was still a work in progress and that I’d need to adapt drawings made initially as thoughts and practice had changed over the months. I’m used to maps becoming anachronistic over time but never within such a short time, and I have to acknowledge that some elements of the map may be out of date by the time it’s actually printed as a sign!’

This might be a little unexpected in the context of creating an illustration, but it is an encouraging reflection: now that extraction has come to an end and restoration work is beginning to have a positive effect in the way water balance is shifting on the moss, the process of healing is showing quick results. It’s part of the positive story of this place – the geographical location won’t change, but a lot else will.

And a final word from Helen? ‘It’s been a blast. I learnt loads and am really pleased with how the map turned out. I wish I could have had some of that cake.*’

*The cake at the Wide Open Day was a 3D presentation of the bog.

Moss of Many Layers Film

Posted on November 16, 2022December 7, 2023 by somewhere nowhere in art research, BoltonFellMoss, community, members work

By Juliet Klottrup

Juliet Klottrup was one of the five artists who worked as part of the team on the Moss of Many Layers project – here’s the film she made after months of research. Click the link and enjoy – it’s a 15-minute watch.

The film now features in the COP26 Virtual Peat Pavillion – visit it there and find out more about peat, mires, mosses and bogs across the world.

An image of the virtual peat pavillion at COP26

To find out more about the project, and the extraordinary Bolton Fell Moss National Nature Reserve, visit the project page here.

Three ceramic pots which are white with blue drawings on them representing food

food crops, sustainability & GM

Posted on October 27, 2022November 3, 2022 by somewhere nowhere in art inspiration, members work

Guest blog by Daksha Patel

This new work – a group of three ceramic pieces – explores themes of global food security and the impact of climate change and new pests and diseases upon food crops.

We are today increasingly reliant on a very small number of food crop species worldwide. According to a report by the New Scientist only 0.1% of the planet’s edible plants are currently used to feed people. Research at Kew is exploring how traditional and wild food crop varieties, which are more resilient to shifting climatic conditions and emerging pests and diseases, can be used to breed genetic diversity into today’s food crops to make them more resilient.

I was commissioned to create this work as part of ‘A Modest Show’ collateral events at BAS9 (The British Art Show 9) in Manchester, 2022. The ceramic pieces featured at the event I’ll Bring You Flowers, a pop up meal and exhibition with fellow Suite Studio artists Fiona Donald and Lisa Remers. This brought together curators, artists, feminist chef and sommelier duo Anna Søgaard and Kim McBride from SUPPher, for an evening of wonderful food, wine and conversations with the general public. Some very interesting discussions about the environment, plant diversity, climate change and plant genetics ensued!

I often start new work by drawing. These sketches are of traditional food crops such as Akkoub (part of the sunflower family which grows in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine) and the Morama bean (an oilseed which grows in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and the Kalahari desert). It is of course impossible to ignore the other man-made threat to global food security: the impact of war and conflict on the supply chains of staple foods such as wheat. I incorporated mapping lines into the drawings to suggest coastlines and shipping routes, connecting different plants and geographical regions together.

I wanted the forms of the pots to reflect glass instruments such as conical flasks and beakers typically used in research laboratories. They were thrown in porcelain by Steve Graham at Clay Studio Manchester who skilfully and precisely followed my designs.

I used cobalt oxide to decorate the pots, an intricate process using tissue paper to transfer my drawings with a fine brush. It was very difficult to see what the final result would be, as the cobalt oxide was gritty and didn’t emulsify in the way water colours do. It was simply a question of making different concentrations of oxide by mixing with water, and waiting to see what emerged after firing.

A white ceramic pot raised on a potter's wheel with a design

The genetic modification of food crops is enmeshed in all kinds of inter-related, unresolved and ongoing issues. Farmers may become increasing reliant upon expensive seeds from the very small number of biotech companies who own the intellectual property for the genetic variations. The impact of GMO contamination in the environment is an ongoing concern that needs more research. Ultimately, scientific research is implicated in wider social, political, economic and environmental issues.

Finely decorated porcelain pots and food are both deeply connected to social practices and culture. The juxtaposition of traditional crafts with the laboratory-based forms and drawings on the ceramics, positions the scientific research into food crops and genetics in wider social contexts.