12th May 2020 – A one day field project to go out for an hour to a green space near to where one lives to interact, intervene, disrupt and record nature in a manner that befits ones individual practice. Of course without leaving a lasting trace or impact on the site once finished.
My chosen destination was the river Wey and canal bank adjacent to my house in Surrey called Lammas Land. I recorded what I saw and heard through photography, sketching and recording the ambient sounds on my phone. – The sound recording was done in the style of John Cage’s 4’33 seconds. I sat on a bench next to the river and recorded the ambient sounds for exactly 4’33. The playback revealed a multitude of sounds from bird song and the wind moving the reeds and bushes to people talking, children playing, cyclists riding past on the gravel and the odd dog bark. – The photography included traditional shots of the river and river bank, wild flowers, insects and birds, together with manmade, found objects like drinks cans, signs and litter. – The sketches were similar.
After an hour I returned home and began with printing off the individual photographs in order to construct a paper collage for the experience. The resulting 16x16cm collage consisted of 6 photographs with conflicting perspectives and scale to reveal an impossible yet recognisable view of Lammas Land.
This work relates to my practice not in painting, but in the use of source photographic images from my own archive and the manipulation into a heterotopian vision, it is of now, recognisable, yet disfunctional as a real space, a synthesis of what was there and how it can be altered, ‘other’. The message on the drinks can sums it up.
The Lammas Lands are the remains of a medieval field system and were derived from the practice of keeping livestock off the land whilst crops were growing from Feb – Aug each year, this time was known traditionally as Lammas. – Lammas is believed to derive from the old English ‘Loaf Mass’, a ceremony that celebrated the bringing in of the corn, a forerunner to the harvest festival. (Credit: Godalming Town Museum). In modern times Lammas Land is still used for grazing but now acts as a flood defence for the river Wey.
Michael Palmer 