Wool Britannia: This Golden Fleece author Esther Rutter weaves her way through Britain’ s knitting history this evening at the York Festival of Ideas
WOOLLY thinking will be encouraged at the online York Festival of Ideas this evening.
At 6pm, author Esther Rutter will weave a journey through Britain’s long history of knitting in her talk This Golden Fleece.
Esther grew up on a sheep farm in Suffolk, learning to spin, weave and knit as a child. On re-engaging with that past, over the breadth of a year, she travelled the length of the British Isles to discover the fascinating stories of communities whose lives were shaped by wool, knitting them together in her book This Golden Fleece (Granta Books).
Esther unearthed tales of mill workers of the Border countries, English market towns built on profits of the wool trade and the Highland communities cleared for sheep farming. She also found tradition and innovation intermingling in 21st century knitwear industries.
Esther, who read English at Magdalen College, Oxford, is writer-in-residence at the University of St Andrews (2017-2020) in the School of Geography and Sustainable Development.
She also works as a freelance project manager for UNESCO, developing cultural engagement projects in collaboration with Edinburgh’s City of Literature Trust.
Join Esther this evening, albeit remotely, for her discussion of the craft and history of knitting, exploring wool’s influence on our landscape, history and culture. Admission is free but booking is required at eventbrite.co.uk/e/this-golden-fleece-tickets-105237367800.
Brought to you remotely by the University of York, York Festival of Ideas is brimful of ideas until June 14, gathered under the new umbrella of Virtual Horizons. For full details, visit yorkfestivalofideas.com/2020-online/.
Iestyn Davies: York countertenor switches from Bach arias on July 8 to John Dowland and The Art Of Melancholy on June 9
THE cancelled 2020 York Early Music Festival is back on…online, headlined by York international countertenor Iestyn Davies.
The virtual version of the summer festival will be streamed from the National Centre for Early Music from July 9 to 11, replacing the original live event from July 3 to 11.
Concerts will be recorded at the NCEM’s home, St Margaret’s Church, in Walmgate, with social-distancing measures in place and no live audience.
Booking will open on Friday, June 19 at tickets.ncem.co.uk and boxoffice@ncem.co.uk, with a festival package at £30, individual concert tickets at £10 each and illustrated talks at £3.50 each.
The artwork for the 2020 York Early Music Festival , now replaced by a streamlined, streamed version of the festival next month
Iestyn Davies would have been performing Bach: Countertenor Arias with Scottish instrumentalists the Dunedin Consort on July 8 at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York. “We figured we couldn’t get the whole of the Dunedin Consort down from Scotland under the lockdown rules,” says festival administrative director Dr Delma Tomlin.
Instead, Davies will present The Art Of Melancholy, joined by lutenist Elizabeth Kenny, a former artistic adviser to the York Early Music Festival and frequent performer at the NCEM, for a concert streamed on July 9 at 7.30pm.
The music of Elizabethan lutenist John Dowland will be complemented by Davies’s renditions and readings of poetry by Robert Burton, Michael Drayton, Rose Tremain, Leo Tolstoy and Dowland himself.
“Iestyn lives in York but he’s a countertenor of truly international prowess and we’re delighted he can join us for the revised festival,” says Delma.
Dr Delma Tomlin: Administrative director of the York Early Music Festival
“Dowland is known for his music of extraordinary misery but utter beauty. He knew that in love, the only thing sweeter than happiness was sorrow. Few living interpreters understand his music more profoundly than Iestyn, who has devised this evening of poetry, music and drama for voice and lute to explore a composer for whom a single teardrop can hold a universe of emotion.”
On July 10, festival artistic advisor John Bryan will provide an illustrated introduction to the day’s online festivities at 10.30am, with each concert linked by a theme of fantasy. Lute and theorbo player Matthew Wadsworth will perform Echoes In Air, a 1pm programme of works by Kapsperger and Piccinini, Dowland and Francesco da Milano, alongside a new piece written specially for him by Laura Snowden, Echoes In Air.
At 3.30pm, harpsichordist Steve Devine will continue his NCEM series of Preludes and Fugues from Book 1 of J S Bach’s The Well-tempered Clavier, here performing Nos 13 to 24. The day will end with Richard Boothby’s 7.30pm concert on lyra viol, with his programme yet to be announced.
Pianist and professor David Owen Norris will give an illustrated introduction to the July 11 online concerts at 10.30am.
Stile Antico back in the days when you could stand together on a staircase. Social distancing will prevail at their July 11 concert. Picture: Marco Borggreve
BBC New Generation artists Consone Quartet, comprising Agata Daraskaite and Magdalena Loth-Hill, on violins, Elitsa Bogdanova, on viola, and George Ross, on cello, will play Beethoven’s String Quartet in G Major Op 18, No 2 and String Quartet in D Major Op 18, No 3 at 1pm.
York Early Music Festival luminary Peter Seymour, a leviathan of the York classical music world, will introduce the story behind his recording of Bach’s St Matthew Passion at 3.30pm.
Stile Antico will present Breaking The Habit: Bringing to life the music of the Renaissance through song at 7.30pm.
“The 16th century saw an unprecedented number of female rulers,” says Delma, setting up the concert’s premise. “From the powerful Medici women of Italy to the great Tudor queens of England, women across Europe held more power than ever before.
Steven Devine: Bach to the future as he works his way through Preludes and Fugues
“Many of these monarchs used their patronage to facilitate the production of music of exquisite beauty by the finest composers of the day, extravagant showcases of their power contrasting with intimate and personal compositions.
“The century also saw the first publication of music by female composers, often Italian nuns, whose convents supported musical groups of astonishing ability.”
To bring the online festival together, the NCEM is working with digital producer Ben Pugh.” We’ve purchased more video and sound equipment, so it’s more like a TV studio environment now,” says Delma.
“It’s fortunate that the NCEM is a big space, being a church building, which will help with social distancing. The opening and closing concert will be streamed as live, and the other concerts will be pre-recorded over a ten-day period.
Elizabeth Kenny: Joining Iestyn Davies for July 9 concert
“After their concert, Stile Antico will stay on at the NCEM for three days of recordings for their Mayflower project, now put back to 2021.
“We’ll also be putting the remainder of Steven Devine’s Bach’s Preludes and Fugues series online in the autumn as his Bach concerts streamed from the NCEM during lockdown have been received really well.”
The 2020 festival was to have run from July 3 to 11 with a theme of “the Method & Madness of musical styles, from the wild excesses of the Italian Renaissance, through the soothing virtuosity of Bach, to the towering genius of Beethoven”.
Among the artists would have been Davies; Devine and Consone Quartet; The Sixteen, singing The Call Of Rome at York Minster, and Barokksolistene, from Norway, with their vivacious festival opener, Alehouse.
Violinist Rachel Podger: Scheduled to play 2021 York Early Music Festival
Lined up to take part too were Rose Consort of Viols; Voces Suaves; Prisma; Profeti della Quinta; L’Apothéose; Hubert Hazebroucq & Julien Martin; The Society of Strange & Ancient Instruments; the University Baroque Ensemble and Peter Seymour directing Handel’s opera Orlando.
Already Delma has confirmed the 2021 festival will run from Friday, July 9 to Saturday, July 17. “Guest artists scheduled to join us next summer include The Tallis Scholars, The Sixteen, Brecon Baroque, led by violinist Rachel Podger, and gamba specialist Paolo Pandolfo,” she says.
The 2020 York Early Music Christmas Festival will go ahead, “but it may all be online,” reveals Delma. “That should be a little bit easier to arrange than for this summer’s festival.
“I should be able to work it all out in good time, whereas re-organising the summer event on a big scale became utterly impossible because the majority of performers were from overseas.
Consone Quartet: Performng Beethoven String Quartets on July 10
“So, instead, we’re doing a digital festival of musicians based in England willing to come to the NCEM next month for this very exciting venture that’s turned out to be brilliant, but for different reasons than the festival we first envisaged.”
The NCEM’s spring series of streamed concerts in lockdown has gone well. “They’ve been free with the option to donate to the NCEM afterwards, and we’ve even had people tuning in from Ecuador, Australia and Southern India, which has been fascinating for us,” says Delma.
“It gives us a chance to connect with a much broader audience and we may well re-share these concerts in the future, but we’re now going to have to find a way of earning money from streamed concerts, setting up a paywall to pay for watching them, in order to help us still be here in a year’s time. The free model can’t continue; we will have to get people into the habit of paying for streaming.”
The hand of friendship: nature’s “little helper”, according to author and professor Robin Dunbar, who needs to talk tonight. Image: Symbolon from Noun Project
AT this pandemic-enforced time of alienation, disconnection, lockdown, social distancing, shielding and virtual gatherings when everyone’s gone to the Zoom, how topical for the York Festival of Ideas to host a talk on Friendship: Nature’s medicine. Online, of course.
At 8pm tonight, psychology professor and author Robin Dunbar, from the University of Oxford, will explore the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms involved in friendships and how they produce these remarkable effects as nature’s “little helper”.
“Like all monkeys and apes, humans are intensely social,” says the festival website. “Close relationships, whether family or friend, are our way of buffering ourselves against the stresses that life puts us under.
“In fact, loneliness has turned out to be the biggest killer. It turns out that friendships have a bigger effect on our quality of life, as well as our ability to resist and recover from illness, than almost anything conventional medicine can throw at us.”
The cover to Robin Dunbar’s 2010 book of evolutionary quirks, How Many Friends Does One Person Need?
Robin Dunbar is professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford, an Emeritus Fellow of Magdalen College and an elected Fellow of the British Academy.
His principal research interests focus on the evolution of sociality with particular reference to primates and humans. He is best known for the social brain hypothesis, the gossip theory of language evolution and Dunbar’s Number (the limit on the number of relationships that we can manage).
Among his science books are: Grooming, Gossip And The Evolution Of Language (1996); The Human Story (2004); How Many Friends Does One Person Need? (2010); The Science Of Love And Betrayal (2012); Human Evolution: A Pelican Introduction (2014); Human Evolution: Our Brains And Behaviour (2016), and Evolution: What Everyone Needs To Know (2018).
Online admission tonight is free but booking is required at eventbrite.co.uk/e/friendship-natures-medicine-tickets-105701357606.
Brought to you remotely by the University of York, York Festival of Ideas is full of ideas until June 14, gathered under the new umbrella of Virtual Horizons. For full details, visit yorkfestivalofideas.com/2020-online/.
Let’s dance…let’s talk about dance: Lottie Adcock, of Dance The Past, seeks to achieve a quick feat this evening in her History Of Dance talk
LOTTIE Adcock, of Dance The Past, sets herself the challenge of taking a whistle-stop tour through the history of dance in only 40 minutes in her online Festival of Ideas event this evening.
To do so, Lottie must cram more than 10,000 years of footwork, choreography and social etiquette into her terpsichorean talk: quick steps indeed.
The festival website invites you to “experience the history of dance spanning the periods from the 10th century to present day at this fun and informative talk.
“Perfect for anyone who’s ever wondered how the medieval peasantry let off steam; which moves Mr Darcy was busting out on the dance floor; or what on earth a Black Bottom Shuffle is.”
Lottie Adcock has been performing in historic dance groups for more than ten years. She formed the group Eboracum Early Dance and runs the YouTube channel Dance The Past.
Lottie covers Medieval, Tudor, Renaissance, Baroque, Regency (Jane Austen), Victorian and 1940s’ dances, highlighting dance from both court and country.
She provides teaching, public workshops, private events, private tutoring and bespoke workshops. For more information, visit the Dance The Past website, lottieadcock.co.uk/home; follow Lottie on Twitter, @DancetheP; Facebook, @dancethepast.
Brought to you remotely by the University of York, York Festival of Ideas is full of ideas until June 14, gathered under the new umbrella of Virtual Horizons. For full details, visit yorkfestivalofideas.com/2020-online/.
Something fabulous..and wicked this way comes: Velma Celli to stream Equinox show in kitchen-sing drama
DRAG diva deluxe Velma Celli invites you to “join me in my kitchen as I celebrate all my favourite witchy and misunderstood characters from movies and musicals” online on Saturday night.
The cabaret creation of York actor Ian Stroughair will be presenting Velma’s hit show, Equinox, Something Fabulous This Way Comes, from Case de Velma Celli.
“Equinox is a love letter to all the witches and magical creatures who have graced our stages and screens, from Wicked to The Wizard Of Oz and every belty enchantress from the coven in between,” says Velma, who will sing her siren songs at the witching hour, “when daylight and darkness are almost equal”.
Since going into self-isolation in Bishopthorpe lockdown after an Australian tour, Ian has performed two Velma shows online: a fundraiser for St Leonard’s Hospice on May 2 and Large & Lit In Lockdown on May 16.
Tickets for show number three, Equinox, cost £7 at: ticketweb.uk/event/velma-celli-equinox-live-stream-tickets/10604915. Around 30 minutes ahead of the 8pm start, audience members will receive a link to watch the performance, which can be streamed on a PC or internet-enabled smart TV.
Charles Hutchinson puts the bewitching questions to a still virtual Velma Celli
How did the Large & Lit In Lockdown show go? Did you have a special guest join you in remote mode?
“It was SO much fun. Sarah [Walker] and I have really fine-tuned the production of a show in a kitchen now during these bizarre times – said nobody EVER!
“I had West End superstar Louise Dearman join me for a remote duet. She’s immensely talented. Check out her albums on ITunes et al.”
How’s life in loosened lockdown ticking over for you after more than 75 days?
“I’m good. Taking each day as it comes and I’m trying to remain that way. As we know, theatre is most likely to be the last thing to open but I try not to think about that too much for my own sanity.”
“I understand the misunderstood and the outcasts, what with being a member of the LGBTQI+ community,” says Ian Stroughair, the York actor behind the Velma Celli drag act
What is the history of your Equinox show?
“I did a UK tour of Equinox first. Rare to get that opportunity but it came right off the back of a hit run of my show A Brief History Of Drag, so I said ‘Yes’, having not yet written the show!
“We’ve played a tour of Australia too and, of course, the West End.”
What draws you towitchy and misunderstood characters from movies and musicals?
“Just my upbringing of The Wizard Of Oz and The The Wiz and the like. It was when the old movies were still treasured and we watched them as a family.”
Were you always drawn to them? Do you feel a connection by any chance?!
“I think I might be drawn to them because I understand the misunderstood and the outcasts, what with being a member of the LGBTQI+ community.”
Who and what features in Equinox and why?
“All your fave witchy, dark, fabulous witch moments in musical theatre and the movies. Ursula to Elphaba and everything in between.”
What do you most enjoy about the witching/bewitching hour?
“It’s a time to unleash the magic and be utterly awesome.”
What costume can the online audience look forward to this weekend?
“A fabulous black dress.”
Any guest contributors popping up or will you be flying solo?
“I’ll have West End star Jodie Steele joining me, remotely again of course. She’s appeared in Wicked, Rock Of Ages and Six, to name but a few.”
What will be the closing number and why?
“I can’t tell you. It’s the finale and a girl NEVER tells…just expect a lot of belt and emotion.”
Will anything be Off Limits when online censorship of art is under discussion tonight?
TONIGHT, the online York Festival of Ideas holds a panel discussion on art censorship in the age of social media.
Taking part, under the chairmanship of Michael White, will be art historians Amy Werbel and Kyveli Lignou-Tsamantani, from the University of York, and contemporary artists Joanne Leah and belit sağ.
“While on the surface we live in a culture that appears to be ever more permissive, restrictions on the circulation of images is increasing at a very fast rate,” contends the Festival of Ideas website.
“In particular, demands for social media companies to show responsibility is leading to many images being removed.
“But what are the implications of this for artists who increasingly need to use social media to build their audiences and careers? Many are now faced with navigating algorithms designed not just to remove unwanted photographs, but even drawings and cartoons.
“In addition, a huge amount of historical art represents acts that would be considered objectionable and reprehensible. Can they be circulated online?”
As artists and museums move increasingly into the space of the internet, tonight’s expert panel will discuss where we should place the boundaries between freedom of expression and social responsibility.
After the 8pm discussion, Michael White, head of the University of York’s history of art department, will host a question-and-answer session.
Joanne Leah’s image-based work explores themes of sexuality, isolation and identity from her base in New York City. She focuses on live models who exist on the fringe of society: sex workers, people from the BDSM and LGBTQA+ communities, as well as non-traditional body types.
Exhibitions include Acid Mass at the Not For Them gallery in Queens; NSFW: Female Gaze at the Museum of Sex and the performance/installation project, Fletish.
She founded ArtistsAgainstCensorship.com to provide a liaison between artists and social-media policy makers. Examples of her work can be found on her Instagram page @twofacedkitten and at joanneleah.com.
Kyveli Lignou-Tsamantani is a postgraduate student in the University of York’s history of art department, researching the politics and ethics of spectatorship of atrocity images in contemporary art.
Her main focus addresses issues of visibility and invisibility in the same context. Her broader research interests cover the ethics of photography/photojournalism, contemporary art and issues of spectatorship, artistic “genealogies” in art history and arts and politics in general.
belit sağ is a video-maker and visual artist who lives in Amsterdam. Her moving-image background is rooted in her work within video-activist groups (VideA, karahaber, and bak.ma) in Ankara and İstanbul.
She was a resident artist at the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York, and Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam.
Her practice focuses on the role of visual representations of violence in the experience and perception of political conficts in Turkey, Germany, Netherlands.
Amy Werbel is professor of history of art at the Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY) in New York. She is now researching art censorship as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of York.
Amy joined SUNY in 2013 as a specialist in the art of the United States and is the author of numerous works on the subject of American visual culture and sexuality.
Her book Lust On Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock (Columbia University Press, 2018) won the 2019 Peter C. Rollins Book Prize of the Northeast Popular and American Culture Association.
Michael White is head of the University of York’s history of art department, working chiefly on the inter-war avant-gardes. He wrote his doctoral thesis on Theo van Doesburg and has a special interest in De Stijl and modernism in the Netherlands.
He was the external curator of the Tate Liverpool exhibition Mondrian And His Studios in 2014. His books include Generation Dada: The Berlin Avant-Garde and the First World War (Yale University Press, 2013).
Brought to you remotely by the University of York, York Festival of Ideas is full of ideas until June 14, gathered under the new umbrella of Virtual Horizons. For full details, visit yorkfestivalofideas.com/2020-online/.
Great Auk, clay head, work in progress for Feral Practice’s The Unseeables
THE Unseeables, a tale of extinction in three birds by filmmaker Feral Practice, is the latest digital commission in lockdown by Scarborough Museums Trust.
The 11-minute film, looking at the “the strange and polarised relationships humans have with other species”, can be seen on the trust’s YouTube channel (bit.ly/TheUnseeablesNDC) from Tuesday, June 16.
Feral Practice, the alias of artist and researcher Fiona MacDonald, explores loss, reparation, extinction and conservation, via the interwoven stories of three birds “lost” to Scarborough, now surviving only as specimens in the Scarborough Collections.
Corncrake facing left, for Feral Practice’s The Unseeables
The first is the sad and harrowing story of the Great Auk. The SMT collections house a single egg of a great auk, a large flightless bird that became globally extinct in 1844.
The auk’s demise was brutal, cruel, and driven by profit; most were killed for their down. As they approached extinction, every specimen was coveted by museums, ultimately putting the prestige of an auk exhibit above the survival of a species.
In the Scarborough Collections too are taxidermy examples of the great bustard and the corncrake.
Great Bustard eye, for Feral Practice’s The Unseeables
The great bustard became extinct in the UK in the early 1800s, but diminishing populations still exist in Central and Southern Europe and Asia, where the huge, “showy” males perform glorious ruffle dances for their female harems.
In Britain, the bird has been the subject of a reintroduction project that has succeeded in establishing a breeding population on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.
The distinctive voice of the shy Corncrake was once integral to the British rural soundscape. Corncrakes started declining, however, as agriculture became mechanised, and by the late 1930s they were absent from much of England, not least Yorkshire, despite once having been widespread across the North of England.
Great Bustard performance body and bird, for Feral Practice’s The Unseeables
Now, they are confined largely to the islands off the west of Scotland and the northern isles of Orkney and Shetland. To save the bird, British conservationists seek to educate and persuade landowners.
The film narrates the birds’ stories alongside imagery that weaves together close-up footage of the Scarborough Collections exhibits with found footage and sculptural responses by Feral Practice, in an “impossible attempt to conjure the lost birds in their studio”.
Feral Practice says: “As we comprehend (or re-learn) the complex warp and weft of ecological thinking, and understand landscapes as self-creating masterpieces of which humans can never be masters, can we step back from our urge to manipulate, exploit and control? Will we allow other species the space they need to flourish alongside us on their own terms?”
Great Bustard performance feathers in two colours for Feral Practice’s film The Unseeables
Scarborough Museums Trust wants The Unseeables to be accessible to everyone, so the film is captioned and a parallel audio experience is available for those who might find this helpful.
Defining Feral Practice’s artistic practice, Fiona says: “We work with human and non-human beings to create art projects and interdisciplinary events that develop ethical and imaginative connection across species boundaries.
“Our research draws on artistic, scientific and subjective knowledge practices to explore diverse aesthetics and create suggestive spaces of not knowing nature.”
Painting the egg for Feral Practice’s The Unseeables
Feral Practice is the artist-in-residence for 2020-2021 at Dunham Massey, a National Trust Georgian house, garden and deer park in Cheshire.
The Unseeablesis one of a series of new digital commissions in lockdown from Scarborough Museums Trust in response to the Corona crisis. The trust has asked artists Feral Practice, Kirsty Harris, Jane Poulton, Wanja Kimani, Jade Montserrat, Lucy Carruthers and Estabrak to create digital artworks for released online across assorted social-media platforms.
Still , gold spiral, for Feral Practice’s The Unseeables
Everything stops for zombie: Zomblogalypse filmmakers Hannah Bungard, Tony Hipwell and Miles Watts
ZOMBLOGALYPSE filmmakers Miles Watts, Hannah Bungard and Tony Hipwell are holding Zomblog Zero Day today for all zombie movie enthusiasts.
“Zomblog fun is coming on Tuesday, all day,” they say on Twitter. “Zomblog is the series we shot that serves as a prequel to the web series and indeed the movie [Zomblogalypse], and a sort of reboot. A prebootquel, if you will. We move with the times.”
For Zomblog Zero Day, these cult York filmmakers will be posting all six Zomblog episodes at Facebook.com/Zomblogalypse and commenting below each one. “We’re encouraging you to watch and ask us anything,” they say. “We’ll also be posting outtakes and surprises along the way. Join us!”
Watts, Bungard and Hipwell are purveyors of a “cult zombie-blog-apocalypse-web-comedy-horror-series and now a big silly movie for 2020”.
Forester Isobel Wilson during a break in a morning of tree felling. Picture Tony Bartholomew.
A YEAR in the life of Dalby Forest and surrounding North Yorkshire woodland is captured in Tony Bartholomew’s online photographic exhibition on the Forestry England website.
His photographs portray activities in the forest, near Pickering, ranging from bird ringing and harvesting to rallying, alongside portraits of forest workers and scenic views.
Long-snapping Scarborough editorial photographer Bartholomew took all his images for Forest 100: A Year In The Life within the boundaries of forests managed by Forestry England in God’s Own Country. They can be seen at: forestryengland.uk/forest-100-year-the-life.
“I approached Forestry England with the idea in early 2019 once I realised that it was their centenary year,” says Tony, whose news-driven photographic patch has taken in Yorkshire and the North East since the early 1980s.
Sled dog racing in Dalby Forest. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
“The Forestry Commission was founded in 1919 to replenish the nation’s supply of timber after World War One. The Forestry Act was passed that same year, turning the riggs [higher ground] and dales that form the landscape of Dalby into today’s forest cared for by Forestry England.”
For one year, from spring 2019 to spring 2020, Batholomew recorded the flora and fauna of the forests, the people who work and play in them, and those who shaped their past and now protect their future.
Images from Forest 100: A Year In The Life were shown first in an outdoor display around Staindale Lake, near the visitors’ centre in Dalby Forest, and now comes the online exhibition.
Delighted by Bartholomew’s photographic documentary of Forestry England’s 100th anniversary landmark, funding and development manager Petra Young, says: “The centenary gives us time to reflect on our achievements and on the breadth of activities taking place in our nation’s forests. Tony’s work shows the range of special aspects the forest has to offer.”
Saskia Pilbeam in Guisborough Forest at the site of a fire earlier in the year. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Here Tony Bartholomew leafs through Charles Hutchinson’s forest of questions.
What were your initial thoughts on what you wanted to portray in a year of forest photographs,Tony?
“My first thoughts and proposals were to try and show the breadth of activity that goes on in the day-to-day running of a forest.
“It’s a huge operation on both a commercial scale with timber operations and also on an ecological, recreational and cultural level. The project was to be basic reportage and Forestry England let me lead on what we should look at photographing.”
Forests are so much more than their trees, for all their beauty and mystery and history, but representing human activity in woodland must have been vital to your project?
“In any project or commission I undertake, it’s the people that really interest me: some of the stronger images in the project were of the people working and playing in the forests.”
A night-time rally stage in Dalby Forest. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
What did you learn about woods that you may not have appreciated before doing Forest 100?
“The cycle of planting, growing and harvesting trees in the forests was amazing to see, from tiny seeds being sorted in the nurseries, to planting out saplings and then the final process of felling.”
What are your earliest memories of woods playing a part in your life?
“When I was around the age of four, we were living in a small town in Dumfries and Galloway called Dalbeattie. The end of the road we lived in bordered a large forest and I had wandered off into the woods on a mini-expedition of discovery. Luckily I didn’t get too far in before my somewhat worried mother discovered me standing on a large stone.
“The forest is managed by what is now Forestry and Land Scotland and is home to some amazing mountain bike trails known as the 7 Stanes. Even though I grew up after that in inner-city Liverpool, I always had an affinity with green spaces and woodland.”
Planting out trees in Cropton Forest. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
What is your idea of a perfect day out in woodland?
“A crisp early-morning autumn start, a couple of cameras and probably a dog for company. Just setting out on a trail not knowing what you might photograph or come across.”
Do you think we appreciate woodland sufficiently and, in our age of climate change, will our response become even more important?
“I do think we are becoming increasingly aware of the role green spaces and especially woodland and forests can play. The need to plant more trees to offset our carbon footprint is obvious and we need to plant more than we currently are.
“Other benefits include providing a habitat and increasing bio-diversity. One thing which I think has come to the fore recently [in the Coronavirus lockdown] is people feeling the need to escape and find a place of relaxation and inner peace. Just find a quiet patch of woodland and sit beneath a tree for five minutes.
Duck down: Synchronised duck dabbling on Staindale Lake in Dalby Forest.. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
“If you go down in the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise,” as the song The Teddy Bears’ Picnic goes. Did anything surprise you in your year of woodland photography?
“I was out in Wykeham Forest on a very wet summer Sunday afternoon and was walking down a very narrow deeply wooded trail.
“I came around a bend and saw straight ahead an adult roe deer. We stopped and observed each other for a few seconds, but as soon as I reached for a camera she was away into the woods.”
Did the differing seasons have an influence on your photography?
“The different seasons do have an influence and effect on your work, especially if you return to a similar spot or viewpoint and observe it at different times of year.
A long-tailed tit is released after being ringed, weighed and logged in Dalby Forest. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
“Most people imagine that as photographers we are always craving blue skies and bright sunshine but many of the best pictures are taken in adverse or unusual weather conditions. Early spring and autumn can give spectacular light.”
What are the specific challenges of photographing in woodland?
“That’s an interesting question and one I haven’t considered. On thinking about it, part of the problem of photographing in the woods is the trees: that old saying “you can’t see the wood for the trees” can ring true at times.
“Making things stand out in what can be a uniform landscape is the answer.”
A mini-whirlpool and fallen leaves in a beck near Dalby Forest. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Should we ever be able to visit galleries again in these Covid-19 lockdown times, where might your photographs be exhibited?
“Let’s be positive and say when we are back visiting galleries again! In this case, it’s not an issue as the exhibition of work was split into three different parts.
“The first two were physically exhibited outdoors in Dalby Forest around a beautiful, flat, accessible trail at Staindale Lake. Dalby is now open again with limited facilities, so check the website, but the second set of pictures are still up around the lake, and we’re talking about what might happen from there.”
Reflection on an autumn day in Dalby Forest. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Did you know?
Forestry England, an agency of the Forestry Commission manages and cares for the nation’s 1,500 woods and forests, drawing more than 230 million visits per year.
As England’s largest land manager, it shapes landscapes and enhances forests, enabling wildlife to flourish and businesses to grow, as well as providing enjoyment for people. For more information, visit forestryengland.uk.
Autumn funghi on a moss-covered fallen branch in Wykeham Forest. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
How To Grow A Human: Adventures In How We Are Made And Who We Are: Dr Philip Ball’s talk at the 2020 York Festival of Ideas this evening
SCIENCE writer Dr Philip Ball asks: “What does it mean to be human and to have a ‘self’ in the face of new scientific developments in genetic editing, cloning and the growth of tissues and organs outside the body?”
His question, posited at the online York Festival of Ideas this evening, was prompted by seeing his own skin cells used to grow clumps of new neurons that organise themselves into ‘mini-brains’.
Pondering the concepts of identity and biological individuality in his 6pm talk, he delves into cell biology, embryology and humanity’s deep evolutionary past when complex creatures like us emerged from single-celled life, as he offers a new perspective on how humans think about ourselves.
“In an age when we are increasingly encouraged to regard the ‘self’ as an abstract sequence of genetic information, or as a pattern of neural activity that might be ‘downloaded’ to a computer, he returns us to the body – to flesh and blood – and anchors a conception of personhood in this unique and ephemeral mortal coil,” says the York Festival of Ideas website.
“Ball, author of How To Build A Human, brings us back to ourselves, but in doing so, challenges old preconceptions and values about life and humanity. Prepare to rethink how we exist in the world.”
After his talk, subtitled Adventures In How We Are Made And Who We Are, online festival-goers are invited to join Ball on Twitter for a live question-and-answer session at 7pm @philipcball.
Brought to you remotely by the University of York, York Festival of Ideas is full of ideas until June 14, gathering under the new umbrella of Virtual Horizons. For more details, visit yorkfestivalofideas.com/2020-online/
Did you know?
Dr Philip Ball is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
