Experiencing place :mapping connectivity in the North Pennines

Abstract

This study of Bruthwaite Forest in north Cumbria investigates interaction with a changing rural landscape, seeking to map connectivity by transcribing subjective experience of place. The random exercise of walking stimulates thoughts and observations that generate a textual and visual narrative of personal involvement in the landscape. Intensive fieldwork and historical research are the basis of an art practice that embodies the material reality of the place in the creation of new artefacts that investigate and comment upon structural change and decay, the topography of place-names, and the human traits of finding and collection. The research area is defined by the boundary of a former hunting forest, now mostly within the Geltsdale nature reserve and the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. My contribution to the history of Bruthwaite Forest includes the location and photography of extant and ruined houses and structures including cairns, bridges, boundary stones, wells and other features of significance to inhabitants in the past. I have tentatively identified and located several medieval shielings, documented all the sheepfolds, and re-placed some ‘lost’ place-names, thus bringing back into current memory names and places which were once common knowledge to those who lived here. The photographic and ceramic artworks are integral to the study, responding to the characteristics of this upland area and acting as a stimulus to reflection on the human place within the natural world.