The Commons:
Re Enchanting the World
This work was specially commissioned for the exhibition and project The Commons : Re Enchanting The World at the Museum of English Rural Life. 2020/2022
I started learning about cordage and basketry after seeing how The Turkana pastoralists in Kenya make use of the plant materials growing around them to build their homes and make string for containers and baskets. This handiwork using the most minimal of means stayed with me, and I set myself the task of learning basketry techniques using materials I could forage or recycle. Most of these processes are used in my installations in the MERL galleries: cordage, weaving, plaiting, twining, coiling, looping and netting. Four woven pieces were installed amongst the exhibits of Hearth and Home Gallery, a domestic space that explores the history of the rural kitchen interior. Three larger woven installations, The Gatherings 1-3 were installed in the Wagon Walk, a long purpose-built space, home to the Museum’s collection of more than 20 beautiful wooden horse drawn farm vehicles that remind us of the labour-intensive nature of farm work before the age of mechanisation. The Gatherings nestled between these immense wagons make reference to the woman’s work and subsistence living that would have been happening at the same time, a reminder that not all labour would have been in the field.
My research about the commons focuses on the social and ecological challenges we face today and how they link to complex histories of ownership and land enclosure when peasants were evicted from the land they had previously used communally. This particularly affected women who used common land for gathering fuel, food and medicine. Just as it’s hard to imagine how commoners lived off the land in an age such as ours when co-operative enterprise is not the norm, it is equally hard to forget that there were times when most of the hours of a woman’s day had to be spent making everything from scratch, planting, harvesting, spinning, weaving and sewing. Perhaps my work will go some way to acknowledging these innovations and to help speak up for my foraging forebears, all the sisters, aunts, daughters, mothers and grandmothers whose days were filled with the labours of reproduction.
I started learning about cordage and basketry after seeing how The Turkana pastoralists in Kenya make use of the plant materials growing around them to build their homes and make string for containers and baskets. This handiwork using the most minimal of means stayed with me, and I set myself the task of learning basketry techniques using materials I could forage or recycle. Most of these processes are used in my installations in the MERL galleries: cordage, weaving, plaiting, twining, coiling, looping and netting. Four woven pieces were installed amongst the exhibits of Hearth and Home Gallery, a domestic space that explores the history of the rural kitchen interior. Three larger woven installations, The Gatherings 1-3 were installed in the Wagon Walk, a long purpose-built space, home to the Museum’s collection of more than 20 beautiful wooden horse drawn farm vehicles that remind us of the labour-intensive nature of farm work before the age of mechanisation. The Gatherings nestled between these immense wagons make reference to the woman’s work and subsistence living that would have been happening at the same time, a reminder that not all labour would have been in the field.
My research about the commons focuses on the social and ecological challenges we face today and how they link to complex histories of ownership and land enclosure when peasants were evicted from the land they had previously used communally. This particularly affected women who used common land for gathering fuel, food and medicine. Just as it’s hard to imagine how commoners lived off the land in an age such as ours when co-operative enterprise is not the norm, it is equally hard to forget that there were times when most of the hours of a woman’s day had to be spent making everything from scratch, planting, harvesting, spinning, weaving and sewing. Perhaps my work will go some way to acknowledging these innovations and to help speak up for my foraging forebears, all the sisters, aunts, daughters, mothers and grandmothers whose days were filled with the labours of reproduction.
The Gathering - Rush
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The Gathering - Echium
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The Gathering - Verbascum
