Meeting with Ali Coles, Seb Buckton, Alice Goodenough and Jackie Townley about ‘Good from Woods’ research project, looking at the well being benefits from Folly Wood membership.
PhD Archive
Welcome to the Phd Blog
Keeping the blog was an important thread in weaving the research, the drawing practice and community facilitation. The degree of Doctor of Philosophy was awarded by the University of Wales Trinity St. David in 2018.
Abstract
The research considers why aesthetics, the subjective ways in which we
experience and value places, and nature’s agency are not readily included in
decision-making processes. This action research adopts a hopeful, participatory
and auto-ethnographic inquiry into the potential for developing and applying a
relational and environmental walking-art practice to overcome this disconnect; an
approach which attempts to reconnect art and life, cultural and natural systems.
Metaphor is used as a method to reflect upon an emergent art practice. The
research considers Felix Guattari’s ideas of transversality, developing an ethicoaesthetic paradigm as a critical framework, taking into account the work of relevant
practitioners and specifically Grant Kester’s arguments concerning reciprocal
creative labour. The framework is developed through a weaving metaphor and
applied to three community-led land-use change case studies; a canal restoration
project, caring for a community woodland and Landscape Character Assessment.
The weaving metaphor becomes both a process and an art work capable of
revealing and helping to incorporate subjectivity into traditionally objective
decision-making processes. As well as facilitating community-wide dialogue, the
research has, in some cases, lead to action being taken alongside nature’s
agency.
The research evaluates the transformation of the art practice and its impact, which
suggests the positive agency of art as a practical aesthetic in a social and
environmental context.
The thesis can be read here:
https://repository.uwtsd.ac.uk/id/eprint/1311/13/Keating%20R%20Landscape%20final.pdf#:~:text=As%20a%20part%20of%20post,with%20people%20in%20the%20Stroud
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thesis, River, Folly Wood
Gave presentation to Cheltenham U3A philosophy group – a lively group discussion ensued and it was useful to be reminded of the precise focus I am developing and conversely, of all the lose ends that the research can’t tie in.
The group agreed to add their own individual comments to the text I had read from and circulated – it will be interesting to see this assemblage in due course…
A lovely dry day, ideal for coppicing.
Cut, collected, sized hazel, ash, oak and beech sticks. Put to dry.
Attachments
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Norway, Folly Wood, River, watery Landscapes
catching-up, planning and arranging project meetings
minor amends for Watery Landscapes article
Reading for thesis
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Folly Wood AGM
Unlike the walk on Friday, I did chair the meeting despite grieving.
Directors and activity plans for next year agreed.Attachments
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First Friday Walk
Feeling very distracted and else where. Kel Portman led a circular walk from Bussage.
It was interesting to be a participant.
Made one drawing compiled of layered drawings along the route.
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Thesis, Stroud Nature, Good from Woods, First Friday Walk, Vision 21
27th to 5th February
meeting about Stroud Nature Consortium organised with Steve Roberts
meeting to develop proposal for ‘Good from Woods’ research into Folly Wood with Seb Buckton, Ali Coles and Jackie Rowanly
First Friday Walk around Chalford
Vision 21 meeting in Cold Aston with Julia Bennett, Alison Parfitt, Sue Porter, Diana Ray and Jaqui Taylor
Thesis synopsis circulated to Tutors
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First Friday Walk, Folly Wood, River, Denys Hodson’s Funeral
Due to the snow and underlying mud, two walks were needed to plan a route for February’s first Friday walk.
Planning SITE13 events and promotions with Kel Portman.Meeting with Greg Pilley at Stroud Brewery to discuss holding a ‘River’ exhibition and community discussion at the Brewery
Preparing for Folly Wood AGM and activity day. In the end I couldn’t go to the activity day as I went instead to Denys Hodson’s funeral. Denys had been a visionary director while I was working in Swindon and also vice chair of the Arts Council. In recent years he had fund raised for the medieval windows in Fairford Church. A great ally and mentor.
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Thesis, River, SITE13, Festival of Nature, Animated Walking Sticks, First Friday walk
10th to 24th
mainly reading and writing. Rather than using writing as a creative (and messy and long) process, this has been a more planful way of writing. I anticipate that its just a means of creating a framework in which I can be messy and freer.Other ongoing work has included developing the programme for a Spring Green Conference, developing a consortium for the Festival of Nature and preparing a funding bid for ‘River’.
Harvesting wood for Animated Walking Sticks – as a part of the ethos of managing woodland, I’ve coppiced some hazel and put to dry. This will be drawn on in due course – once I’ve made a machine on which to do it. ‘Stick’ is an old term for a book chapter as scrolls were kept wound around them in manageable lengths. The intention is to develop this metaphor by combining sticks and newer technology.
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Thesis, Folly Wood, River, SITE13, Festival of Nature
rest of week re-considering writing (and usual planning/servicing of community events)
Trying to find a more structured approach to reading and note taking. Much has been done, making use of the internet from which I now have bought a number of key texts that I want to study more thoroughly. (Putting this into practice, I still find a need to visit newly discovered texts on the internet).
Produced a different diagram of thesis structure. What goes where still seems too fluid.
As to central question, I feel I have a grasp on it and then it morphs –
- Are the various engagements the materials/genre and the process, in which case what were the outcomes and how to measure them? Perhaps who to measure them?
- Are the various engagements context for the research which is actually about developing the practice which can enable/engage? In which case how would it be judged? What are the criteria beyond my own initial ones?
- Can it be both? Is such an integration core to my ontology?
- In which case does the practice include a constant research element into itself and how could such research be measured or even known?
- Is it a matter of emphasis – so, for example, more about researching the development of an arts practice through a particular methodology which holds the understanding of what “it all means” than about the engagement findings such as 10 people did this, twenty did that – so how to measure the outputs?
- How would having something in the museum help – it would make the outcomes disseminated knowledge about the place and its people – anthropology? So is the work auto/relational/ethnoggraphy?
- How would this relate to a/r/tography?
