“Fieldwork has traditionally been regarded as something of a trademark within certain academic disciplines…still today [it is] mainly treated as a physical assignation, out there, preferably far way, different, distanced and detached from the ‘everyday’, or ‘home’ of the researcher.” David Crouch and Charlotte Malm, 2003, p. 260

“All places exist somewhere between the inside and the outside views of them” Lucy Lippard, 1997, p. 33

Extract from research diary 18^th May 2006:

“Met Peter at Café Milano at 10 and had a good chat whilst waiting for Lynn and Val to arrive. We talked about the ‘Emerging Affinities’ conference in Edinburgh and following on from that the nature of collaboration. I also mentioned something that Francis McKee had said at the conference – a comment about a ‘lack of confidence in the local’. I’m not too sure if I interpreted this phrase how Francis intended, discussed in relation to an “art world” in which work seems to gain legitimacy through touring or being international (so happening ‘there’ rather than ‘here’ – rather like fieldwork?), but none the less it struck a chord with me, particularly in the context of this research project.”

The uncertainty that comes with working ‘locally’, that is to say within a place that is bound up with personal geographies and histories, can be understood, in part, with reference the above, but I think also has something to do with the ways in which familiarity with place complicates, and can sometimes (but certainly not always) inhibit, creative or imaginative engagement. Perhaps this is why I have been particularly interested to see how Ruth, Stefhan, Simon and TEA, for whom Oswestry is far less familiar ground, have chosen to respond to this locality, and how this might reframe everyday engagements with aspects of this place. Equally, the project artists have been interested in my response to local sites, not only as a geographer but as someone with a particular set of local knowledges, stories and embodied memories, which present alternative ‘maps of meaning’, through which place is often navigated.

Crouch, D. and Malm, C. (2003) in Dorrian, M. and Rose, G. ‘landscape practice, landscape research: an essay in gentle politics’, in Deterritorialisations: Revisioning Landscape and Politics. Black Dog Publishing Ltd. London

Lippard, L. R. (1997) The Lure of the Local. The New York Press. New York.

‘[The] collaborative process not only blurs the question of authorship but also displaces the location of the creative act’. Nikos Papastergiadis, 2006, Spatial Aesthetics, Art, Place and the Everyday, p. 174

Through the development of Bordering, I have thought quite a lot about the nature of the collaborative process and particularly how different contexts (on line, on site, in a café, at a group meeting) present the opportunity for different types of creative exchange. For me, it is perhaps those informal conversations (over coffee, in the car, walking about on location), where uncontrived moments of openness and responsiveness occur, that most often generate a sense of collaboration….

Extract from research diary, 23^rd June 2006:

Met with Ruth at 9.30 in Oswestry, drove to Machynlleth. During the journey we talked further about the racecourse piece and the possibility of including music as part of the event. Ruth said she had been thinking about potentially incorporating a violinist, flutist and drummer; I mentioned that watching ‘chimaerae verae’ the previous evening, a piece which includes a folk based sound track, had put the idea of somehow incorporating sound in my mind too. We discussed the idea of the music coming from unidentified sources, perhaps having musicians hidden behind trees, swirling sounds, giving atmosphere and creating a sense of expectation, whilst also retaining the horses as the main visual focus. Ruth also talked about the importance of this ‘build up’ to the performance, for creating a space in which an experience of liminality can occur – I’m particularly drawn to this element of Ruth’s work…
Arrived at Equilibre at around 11, stunning scenery, much wilder than the area around Oswestry. Caught up with Jane (founder of Equilibre) down at the stables and discussed concepts for the piece over tea. Ruth explained further her idea of having two horses, one white one black, enacting the tensions that exist between polarities and how the audience should feel this sense of tension. We discussed how the audience might be incorporated more within the performance, linking this to the horse movement workshop, perhaps carrying lanterns, or moving around the site in some way. To think further about the nature of the performance, Jane and her husband, then gave us a short performance in the indoor centre, with Jane riding Heroi and Georges a dark brown horse, the idea being that this would give Ruth more of feel of what the horses can do. We then headed up in to field to watch Jane ride outside, a much freer, less dressage-style, performance. Heroi is incredibly striking against horizon…
Drove to back to Oswestry with Ruth and Jane for a site visit to racecourse in order to give Jane a better idea of the land at the course and a sense of the site more generally. On the way we discussed project ideas further as well as our different backgrounds and what place and landscape mean to each of us. Arrived at site some time after 3, carrying with us lanterns to suspend from the trees, walking up to the potential performance area we considered more carefully (and practically) the initial build-up experience as the audience arrive at the site. Ruth showed Jane area she had thought about for performance, testing the ground Jane felt that the performance would be better suited to the area up around the old grandstand. Moving within the grandstand we discussed having the audience located within this space and the possibility of having the horses ride up on to the grandstand, bringing them into very close proximity with the audience and emphasising their power (and agency). We also talking about re-creating the double headed horse silhouette (Janus) on top of grandstand and began to think around lots of different binaries here - tension/harmony freedom/control human/animal. We discussed how bringing the horses up into the grandstand would necessitate careful monitoring, the regulation of borders if you like. Linking the relationships between the horses and the audience to the notion of border crossings, we thought about how workshops participants could act as stewards in some way, moving between human and animal worlds, border guards perhaps?

Prior to meeting up with everyone last Friday, I began to think more critically about project developments to date, particularly the various site visits that I have made with Ruth and TEA in recent months. Looking back through my research diary, I recounted the different interactions and encounters taking place with and within these specific sites, through which each artwork is evolving. Thinking further about the nature of these engagements I became increasingly interested in the artists’ use of location as an active medium (rather than a flat stage) through which to explore, question and communicate complex ideas of place, identity and borders, in which the experience of the site becomes central to the actuality of the work. Working in this way, conceptual and material engagements with place are crafted together to create work that operates across a range of sensory registers. This idea has led me to reflect upon the ways in which human geographers generate, or more specifically communicate, ideas of place - strategies that for the most part remain ‘on the page’. Certainly human geographers do now employ an increasingly experimental array of qualitative research methods to explore the relationship between place and identity (I include two pertinent references below), but rarely are phenomenological encounters with particular environments used to convey these geographical narratives to a wider audience. So for me, working with specific sites, using place itself as medium through which to articulate border geographies, connections, divisions, socio-spatial practices, is a really thought-provoking aspect of the project.

Anderson, J. 2004, “Talking whilst walking: a geographical archaeology of Knowledge”, Area, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 254-261.

McIntyre, A. 2003, “Through the Eyes of Women: photovoice and participatory research tools for re-imagining place”, Gender, Culture, Place, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 47-66.

It is possible to rent temporary mobile security fencing and annex land anywhere, if you have the funds. A team of men will even come and help you.
Extras include privacy mesh, hoardings for messages and listening devices.

The security fence built around the West Bank in Israel has provoked a virtual dialogue between young Palestinian activists and Israeli soldiers on their daily perceptions of the fence and each other. Having never met they speak via Blog, frank and to the point they reveal the feelings behind the conversations they can never have in public

“In person we can’t talk, I am the guy in the T-shirt and sneakers and he is in a military uniform,” he said. “The whole relationship changes when we have this whole other type of exchange and we are both sitting at computers. He doesn’t know what I look like and I don’t know what he looks like. But we are in the same village on opposite sides of the razor wire and we both perceive everything so differently.”

Walking on Hatterall Hill, part of the ridge which runs alongside the Welsh - English border near Abergavenny, I came upon a National Trust information board which seemed to sum up the status of the border. The first thing that struck me was the blurring of the location of the border - encountered by anyone trying to trace its precise location - the sign stated that Hatterall Hill marked the border whilst the map shows that it runs along a river 1/2 mile to the East.

The second thing was the defacement of the sign itself.

The sign, like most others in the National Park was in both Welsh and English and had been defaced over a period of time, first by someone trying to erase the English (they’d also added Cymraeg in big letters, over the English bit of the map). Later, presumably in reply, someone had tried to erase the Welsh.

The sign seemed to act as a locus for a nationalist rivalry which is treated as an embarrassment by our political masters. Rightly so perhaps, but what is interesting is that these national rivalries are absent from the spheres of power and have become a distinctly personal issue, like support for a football team, or whether you shop at Tesco or Asda.

The other factor at play on Hatterall Hill was the RAF jets practising up and down the valleys on either side, a reminder that whilst the border may be politically insignificant in the UK, its lack of importance is a signifier of a tacit agreement by the Western Powers to conduct their conflicts elsewhere - in countries where the border is as important as this one once was, when the task of constructing Offa’s Dyke was undertaken.

The Guide/curator/native informant/writer/geographer and artists/visitors/researchers met in a local cafe to exchange information and ideas over lunch.
We four brought our interests, skills and knowledge to the table. Institutions have struggled to maintain clear boundaries and fight over intellectual territory but we have all been working at the interstices and margins of so many bodies of knowledge, subjects and ways of knowing and means of communicating what and how we know.

From “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second” by William Shakespeare. 1595.

King Richard played by Val Murray
Bollingbroke played by Lynn Pilling
Mowbray played by Peter Hatton

“King: Then call them to our presence face to face. And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will heare th’ accuser and th’ accused freely speake; high stomack’d are they both, and full of ire, in rage deafe as the sea; hastie as fire.

Enter Bollingbroke and Mowbray

Bollingbroke: Many years of happy dayes befall My Gracious Soveraigne, my most loving Liege.

Mowbray: Each day still better other happinesse, Until the heavens envying earth’s good hap, Adde an immortal title to your Crowne.

King: We thanke you both, yet one but flatters us, As well appeareth by the cause you come, Namely, to appeale each other of high treason.”

And so a bitter argument ensues.

The episode of history recorded in a fictional form (a sixteenth century ‘docu-drama’) by Shakespeare took place in Oswestry Castle. In his play Shakespeare transposed the action to the Tower of London.

“All the world’s a stage’
And all the men and women merely players
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.”

William Shakespeare “As You Like It”

By day the Guildhall in Oswestry is the administrative hub of the town, ordering the everyday functions, systems of roads, benefits, sewers, justice, markets and the necessary avoidance of chaos. Letters are opened computer screens flicker and telephones ring. By night, after office hours, the flourescent lights dim as the candles are lit, the business suits shimmer into evening finery, and the revelry begins as the Attfield Theatre curtains rise revealing worlds of make-believe, mystery and imagination in the heart of the town hall.

It was not a market day so some stalls indoors were closed and the square in front and out back was empty. Longsight market in Manchester is open on Friday, Saturday and Wednesday. Similar striped canopies shelter the goods and shoppers. There are two vegetable stalls, one sells okra, sweet potato, egusi, moolis, very fiery ’scotch bonnet’ chillis, big bunches of fresh thyme, callalloo in the summer, coconuts, West Indian squash and pale green pumpkins so huge and with such tough skins they have to be chopped in quarters with an axe. On the adjacent stall are carrots, cabbage, potatoes, swede, onions, turnips, leeks and cauliflower.

Memories of the last time I (Lynn) visited Oswestry crept up on me in fragments, gradually through the day. They appeared as feelings, smells, colours and conversations but mostly the layout of certain spaces and streets. I was last here in the late seventies, aged about seventeen. I was living on a canal boat with friends for the summer when I fell ill and desperate to reurn home. There was no bus from Ellesmere till the next day so I hitched a lift into Oswestry with a farmer. I caught a bus to Shrewsbury, a bus to Birmingham and another bus to Wixford. There is no real division between past and present, however precisely we try to define and separate the experience of time through language.