Deep Encounters

    a multifaceted mapping of a small piece of land

    A project initiated by Walking the Land CiC

    “A year-long project starting December 2025 involving 13 artists working in different areas/locations. Working collaboratively, but from different parts of the world, there will be periodic conversations about how we are each representing our piece of land, and ideas for shared activities. Identifying their area of study via Google mapping / OS map / w3ws, each artist will walk the perimeter of their area, tracing the outline, recording what it contains using photos, words, drawings, maps, sound etc. Walking our chosen places, getting to know them, activities and engagements will develop gradually from a growing familiarity. And we will be playful in our responses!” Janette Kerr

    Artists participating

    Zoë Ashbrook , Ruth Broadbent, Alison Berrett, Sara Dudman, Tamsin Grainger, Melinda Hunt, Richard Keating, Janette Kerr, Rachel McDonnell, Valerie Coffin Price, Amanda Steer, Sally Stenton, Amanda Steer, Molly Wagner

    Walking the Land

    December 2025

    I walked in search of a narrow, wooded place between river on one side and footpath and field on the other.   The path I thought I remembered from lockdown walks had gone, but I found another incursion and broke brittle hawthorn twigs and pushed aside thick thorny bramble stems to gain access to a small piece of land carpeted with ivy and leaves about 4 x 4 metres of gentle slope and infinite in its height and depth. 

    It is an inhospitable place for humans. It scratches lines on me and steals my hat, and yet there is a cosiness to the prickly space where soft focus images of the thorns resemble nipples! In a few months I expect to move to another part of the country and will search for small piece of land that resonates in some way with this one. The layering of place will form a connection between here and there, then and now.  The space does not allow me to traverse the boundary and so I take photos in 4 horizontal directions and above and below. From these images I tried to create a 3d model. The map has taken the form of a vessel.

    What3words: mouth.sundial.ring.

     

    January 2026

    Waters have risen and the small piece of land has become smaller, whilst a strong magnifying glass makes the lichen, berries and bark increase in size. Lichen cups capturing water, berries become jelly-like and the bramble thorns look moist, translucent and harmless, even more like soft breast tips.

    Too cold for lingering and too wet to lie on the ground and search for microscopic life.

    February 2026

    The rain continues and now the piece of land is completely inaccessible (to humans) without deep waders. I cannot see it from where I stand over half a mile away. The pathway is enticing, but impossible. Water is a cool blanket on the land as far as I can see. It happens every year, this enchantment of water across the flood plain. In recent years it seems to have been more persistent in frequency and duration.

    We have been given a challenge: ‘A silent encounter (an hour?) – what do you sense, notice, be drawn to…?’ I imagine myself into the space.