Exhibition launch 6th June
Tomorrow evening (Thursday 6th June) is the opening night of Time, the deer, is in the wood of Hallaig, the free exhibition I’ve put together on the theme of forests, memory, and social / environmental history, with specimens, prints, and small press / unique edition texts. Around 50 contributors are involved, including the Kew Musuem of Economic Botany, and it is taking place at St. John on Bethnal Green, a Grade 1 listed building designed by Sir John Soane.
Please do come along at 7.30pm if you’re interested – there will be free sparkling wine as long as it lasts (and then a bar), live music, and a book launch of Nostalgia Forest.
Vinyl cover of Rob St. John’s Weald
Rob St. John will be playing at 8pm.
Following on from The Douglas Firs, his most recent album, Weald (released on 12” LP in 2011) is drawn from the Saxon word for forest, later assimilated by the Anglian wold and the Kentish wild. The album has been described as a ‘funereally paced’ ‘auditory forest’; in it, kraut, drone and psych influences are held together by peals of British folk guitar and wheeling gusts of rich, cryptic vocals. St. John plays drawn-out and ghostly songs underpinned by the creaks and drones of the harmonium, musical saw, fiddle, skittering drums, analogue synth and field recordings.
Jack Harris will be playing at 9pm.
A literate young folk musician, Harris is known for his intricate fingerstyle guitar and smoky, soulful vocals. He draws from the narrative traditions of folk and blues music, and will be responding on the night to the themes of trees, forests, and memory, with both trad. songs, and his own. His first two albums are Broken Yellow and The Flame and the Pelican.
I wanted to upload some photographs to show the progress with the exhibition building so far – below – one of our break-throughs being the decision to display the tree slices supplied by dendrochronologist Martin Bridge on painting easels. Also, on Monday I was awarded a prize at Royal Holloway for my presentation at the first roundtable of the Society, Representation and Cultural Memory interdisciplinary faculty group, so I’ll be spending the funds on making an online catalogue for the exhibition. Though I couldn’t afford a print catalogue, or hold the exhibition open for longer than a week (I’m really supposed to be finishing my PhD), there’s been a lot of interest shown in it, and it would be great to make it accessible online. If you are interested in coming along on Thursday night to join the drinks (the church is at 200 Cambridge Heath Road, right outside Bethnal Green tube station on the Circle Line, and next to the Museum of Childhood), please do take photographs or write up the exhibition somewhere afterwards if possible.
Write off the map 
Reblogged this on Landscape Surgery and commented:
Amy Cutler (Ph.D. candidate) talks about an exhibition supported by Landscape Surgery, which is launching with free drinks on Thursday night.
[…] you’re in the London area tomorrow, you should check out Amy Cutler’s exhibit Time, the deer, is in the wood of Hallaig, on view at St John on Bethnal Green from June 6-11th. My artist’s book, “The […]
“Keep You” | CARLEA CASSYL said this on June 6, 2013 at 5:47 am |
This sounds so wonderful (and congenial — I published a book about trees and memory in the fall of 2011). I’d love to live closer so I could come.
ah fascinating! I’ve just ordered a copy of your book. Nice title!
I hope you enjoy it! I’m reading House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest by Craig Childs and have just read a chapter about core sampling of timbers in cliff houses abandoned by the Anasazi in the last part of the 13th c. An amazing little window into climate change — the dendrochronologists read tree rings like codexes…I remember exploring that part of the world — Four Corners area of the US, where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet — and finding the traces of these ancient cultures so beautifully at home in the landscape.
tk
Yes, I’m looking forward to it – it should be here in a few days! Coincidentally I just finished a chapter of my research on trees, woodland, and the mnemonic impulse – so it’s good to come across your work. I’ve been doing some analysis of the language used by dendrochronologists, too, particularly during the beginnings of the discipline in Arizona, and when they treat tree stumps and tree rings as libraries and archives… and of course the great double meaning of ‘codex’…x a
[…] Off The Map: Amy Cutler and the beginnings of a public opening of these […]
Day #226/365: Traces From A Delerium Of Forests... | A Year In The Country said this on August 14, 2014 at 2:29 pm |