Made in the conversation #2, Katsutoshi Yuasa

Time, the deer, is in the wood of Hallaig……

The enigmatic opening line of Sorley Maclean‘s poem was chosen as the title for an exhibition on forests and memory, curated by Amy Cutler, which had its opening last week in the Belfry Gallery of St John on the Green, at Bethnal Green in London.

Those who follow this blog will know how often I feature trees, woods, forests (even more than I realised looking back), and this exhibition had many personal resonances for me, having been born close to Epping Forest, which features in several exhibits. Simon Schama‘s  Landscape and Memory, with a section on wood, and Robert Pogue Harrison‘s Forests: The Shadow of Civilisation are both long standing favourite reading material.

This exhibition focused on the forest as an archive, a witness, holding and keeping memories of its own, of itself and of human history from trauma to nostalgia – using archive material, texts and artworks, labelled and sometimes boxed, to create an archival installation. There is an instinct in humans to classify, pin down, preserve in order to understand and make sense of something, which may, as I think is intended here, still remain elusive, fleeting, even when it has a physical actuality. An initial appearance of objectivity can be counteracted by final intent. This is the phenomenological approach to curating, in complete opposition to the white box aesthetic. I was for some reason reminded of Francis Alÿs’s film artwork, The Nightwatch (2004) with the fox in the National Portrait Gallery.

Many of the artists were new to me, a new generation maybe, but names such as Alec Finlay, Chris Drury and herman de vries are well established favourites. Working with poems, texts, actual tree material they are all remaking or re-presenting the natural world. Others use photography, sound, film and (a few) traditional fine art media.

Alec Finlay’s Latin and Gaelic names for trees

detail from herman de vries piece

Tree rings, literally show memories, time and events in the life of the tree, traumas can be read like words in a book to those able to interpret them, here through dendrochronology sections, core samples and drawings.

Nostalgia Forest, a pamphlet publication by Amy Cutler published by Oystercatcher Press, launched here, ties in neatly. It combines diagrams from dendrochronology manuals with words from Paul Ricoeur‘s Memory, History, Forgetting.  ”To remember is to have a memory or to set off in search of a memory.” These juxtapositions make us create new connections and question our assumptions.

Social history shows the life and death of the forest: pieces from the Economic Botany Collection at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew show the forest as a resource, a ribbon of the Ancient Order of Foresters suggests those who are part of its history, old postcards of forest images suggest collective memories.

With minimal obvious signs of man and his intervention the forest retains its mystery and integrity here, not yielding its secrets easily.

This was enhanced by the setting and the opening event, the feel of a forest interior in the church (a Grade 1 listed building designed by the architect John Soane) lit for performance, the climb to a belfry tree house in a forest of stone, dimly lit, a shrine. A joint reading of the Sorley Maclean poem was followed by haunting music from Rob St John, followed by other relevant music.

The subject matter seems to stir something in us and the extensive interest shown in the exhibition (which was unfortunately on for a very short time) fully justifies the ideas behind it. It would be wonderful to see it taken forward, although the atmosphere and sense of occasion could easily be lost on a bigger scale or in another venue.

A full catalogue by Amy Cutler will be available shortly online (see writeoffthemap.wordpress.com) which will make up for my not very informative photographs and captions, for which I apologise (particularly to those I have not credited). For me it has been an inspiration for the future as well as a source of memories to follow the progress of this exhibition.

Related articles

• http://amycutler.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/time-the-deer-is-in-the-wood-of-hallaig-6-11th-june/

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower

Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees

Is my destroyer.

(From The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower by Dylan Thomas)

Painting by Ceri Richards illustrating the poem

The photograph at the top of the page and those in this gallery are of the bird cherry, a native tree in the north of England and Scotland which has been planted in the south, particularly in parks. These bucolic looking examples are in London, adjacent to the Northern Line of the Underground, in the appropriately named Cherry Tree Woods.

Another specimen I found in Waterlow Park inspired me to do a series of sketches investigating it in different ways. These were done in summer rather than spring. How will it seem this year? Shall I go back or move on?

Retracing London’s Drovers’ Roads
by Howard Miller and Rowena Hay

I have a book called Drovers’ Roads of Wales by Fay Godwin and Shirley Toulson published in 1977, which has always fascinated me. ”Through the heart of Wales run innumerable centuries-old tracks — many still traceable and open. They are the Drovers’ Roads. For hundreds of years — from the Middle Ages to the victory of the railways around 1900 — they were trodden by tens of thousands of cattle, sheep and even geese being driven — at an average of 2 mph — to the markets of London. The drovers — many of them now Welsh folk legends — avoiding the main roads, walked their flocks through villages, lively market towns, sometimes following Roman and even earlier highways, passing ancient sites and megaliths and through some of the most dramatic landscapes of Wales” as it says on the back cover.

English: Drovers’ Road, and Forestry on Bryn Mawr, Ceredigion (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Having come across references to them in various places I have visited in Wales I was intrigued when I saw a drovers’ walk in London advertised as part of the Chelsea Fringe festival taking place accompanying the Chelsea Flower Show.  It turned out to be based on one of the shortlisted entries for the Highline for London competition held recently. This was organised by the Landscape Institute and the Garden Museum as a call for ideas in response to the New York Highline walkway re invented on an old overhead railway line (coincidentally used for transportation into the meatpacking district). The London competition was asking for ‘green infrastructure‘ for any specific site in London and all the entries can now be seen on a web site called http://www.newlondonlandscapes.org.

Hackney was the starting point, and we were to follow a route ending at Bishopsgate, symbolising the entrance to the City of London. Misty Hay and Howard Miller, who designed the route, were our drovers. They had been intrigued by how a desire line existed along Broadway Market and Columbia Road in East London, which cut across the main road pattern and seemed to link up a back route through the city, which could be a ‘green’ route. It could be seen to have a food connection too as written about by Carolyn Steel in her Hungry City book:

“Look at the plan of any city built before the railways , and there you will be able to trace the influence of food. It is etched into the anatomy of every pre-industrial urban plan: all have markets at their heart, with roads leading to them like so many arteries carrying in the city’s lifeblood. London is no exception.“

“A closer reading of the map reveals how food once reached the city. London’s sheep and cattle, many of them from Scotland, wales and Ireland approached from the North, streaming down country lanes to Newgate, where the ancient city’s livestock market was held. During the 9th century, the market expanded to a ‘smooth field’ (Smithfield) just out side the city gate where a meat market remains to this day.“

This ties in coincidentally with my recent post on the Smithfield area.

So armed with our beautifully designed map (packet of seed bombs attached) we leave the palm trees of Hackney Town Hall Square and go through Grove Passage (no trees) along the side of London Fields (no documentary evidence for grazing by drovers but could be possible) heading for Broadway Market. Howard tells us about the design strategy for the route – low key, piecemeal, grass roots and interactive rather than imposed in a bombastic fashion. We help by throwing a few seed bombs as we go to bolster biodiversity. These include plants used as fodder, with animal names, folklore associations, and or seeds transferred by animals – Shepherd’s Purse, Lamb’s Ears, Cow Parsley, Cowslip, Teasel, Cock’s Foot etc. Permeable paving, replacing broken paving stones as necessary, with flags with hoof shaped holes to allow soak-away drainage; trample tolerant species of plant such as Pineapple Weed; occasional markers, natural and planted; lighting in trees. This suits the spirit of the drove, slow, as green as possible, avoiding the hard busy paved roads.

We find old markers: Lamb Lane, Sheep Lane, the Cat and Mutton pub which used to be the Shoulder of Mutton. Broadway Market used to be called Mutton Lane until it was broadened in 1811. Rowan trees were apparently good luck in drover folklore.

Straight on down Goldsmiths Row to the entrance to Haggerston Park and a route via a stile (alternative gate available!) through the wonderful Hackney City Farm for some live animals (and an award winning cafe).

In Columbia Road I find some traces of Wales and animals but alas the route is now less green. We look in vain for way finding devices such as trees which the drovers used, often manipulating and contorting them to make them more obvious. A case for some tree planting, included in the scheme.

Along Virginia Street we reach Shoreditch High Street and come to Bishopsgate. As Scots Pine were used to mark a pass by the drovers the proposition is to plant Scots Pines in the canyons of Bishopsgate interspersed with wooden butchers’ block markers, symbolising the end point for the animals. At the city limits the drovers would have handed over the drove to another set of drovers licensed by the City of London Corporation, so we end our drove here. The introduction of the railways and transportation of fresh meat by rail put an end to the drovers.

Thanks to Howard and Misty for the walk and for giving me their notes!

Further Information:

http://www.newlondonlandscape.org/project/197/Retracing-London-drovers-roads

Carmarthenshire is famous for the 12th century herbalists the Physicians of Myddfai. This is the Apothecaries garden created at the National Botanic Garden of Wales in Carmarthenshire, growing the plants they used for their Welsh herbal treatments, as well as those used in other parts of the world.

There is also a restored apothecary interior, which includes authentic displays of items such as suppositories and dental instruments.

This month sees the exhibition Materia Medica by the 2nd year Fine Art BA students from Coleg Sir Gar in Carmarthen put on as part of the Medicines in May event at the Botanic Garden. Plants collected from the garden labelled with their uses inspired drawing workshops for visitors. Installations within the displays included decorated vessels such as medical cups and bowls, botanical drawings and descriptive pieces as well as embroideries and artists books.

At Chelsea Flower Show this year the National Botanic Garden of Wales has its first garden, Get Well Soon, winner of a silver medal, inspired by Welsh herbalism and healing, designed by Maggie Hughes and Kati Crome, the gold medal winning team who did a garden based on Laugharne and Dylan Thomas a few years ago. It includes a pebble path designed for use as a reflexology walk, as well as plants including the bronze fennel shown above in the National Botanic Garden.

Related articles

• Physicians of Myddfai inspire debut artisan garden at Chelsea Flower Show (walesonline.co.uk)
• http://www.cityplanter.co.uk/out-and-about/chelsea-flower-show-gardens-2013
• Presenting ‘Materia Medica’ (dnmcculley.wordpress.com)