Monster Tree

 I often think of Paul Nash and his photographs of dead trees in Monster field.  I have always been taken with the work of British artists like Nash and his brother John and Eric Ravilious and Tirzah Garwood.  They are close to the first world war and somehow their relationship to and depictions of the British countryside captures something that holds back a deep despair.  They paint utter desolation but also what comes before and what comes after.  Their fields and pastoral scenes depict a tightly controlled and managed countryside that somehow locks us into a feeling of safety and consistency. Paul's photographs of dead trees have a sculptural solidity of form that for me transcends the fact they are dead, they are melancholy but not tragic images. 

I am thinking about a project I did a couple of years ago where we asked people to imagine the world in 200 years.  We decided on 200 years as it seemed long enough for things to have significantly changed. A future time that  was not so strongly located in the present. It was also a project that was celebrating 200 years since the birth of John Ruskin so we were thinking a lot about what the world looked like 200 years ago- I described this past as the time of the hand and the horse. 

As we  like to work with Dogmas, which I understand to mean a set of strict rules that can enable thought and action to work differently, then I can set them up hear.  We could following Sarah Trueman's book dress this up as research-creation and I believe that this could be useful to build a little bit of method to hide behind.

Before reading Sarah's book I think I would probably call it an art game or a score - a bit like Alan Kaprow a little bit Fluxus yet more open for manipulation and less concerned with authorship. I think we would need to have a reason for doing this which could be the start of a journal paper or something to look back on - or part of the artist in residency work or something that involves all the work packages.  Any good reason will do but we do need a reason.

As you are scan reading this Kate your toes are curling slightly and you are thinking that this is not co-produced and people will be busy and reluctant to do it.  They may also be nervous that they will be judged on what they write and this is not what they do in their day job or what they signed up for here.  I think although I am not sure or precious about anything that this task is imagined at an appropriate level.  Yes people may be a bit reluctant or a bit busy or not see the point but it would be good to have a shared activity and the excuse of making some minor art to make it happen.   I think that this is my role and I know you will bat this back like the other ideas I have because we probably disagree about roles and it probably will cause a slight ruffle of feathers when we least need it. I think though that if we time it right and there is a reason for people to do it something interesting may come of it - or not but it would be small enough not to really matter .

I could make a small book or newspaper we could circulate to everyone.

 

 The starting point of the request - we could think about this more together ?

The Rules, the Dogma, the Score.

Write 200 words about what the urban treescapes of the UK will look in 200 years.  

You can include a drawing or a single image.

Ideas can be speculative but they must contain an element of hope.  

 

The writing will be shared as a collated document when everyone has submitted their contribution.  It will not be shared or distributed beyond the project though if people are in agreement we may use it to kick start some writing together.

 

 We will not share them until everyone on our treescapes program has completed the task.