Nicholas Hedges

Art, Writing and Research

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • Artwork
    • Selected Works
    • Galleries
      • A Moment’s Language
      • Installations
        • Murder
        • The Woods, Breathing
        • The Woods, Breathing (Texts)
      • Photographs
        • The Trees
        • Shotover
        • Pillars of Snow
        • Places
        • Textures
        • Walk to work
        • Creatures
      • Photographic Installations
        • St. Giles Fair 1908
        • Cornmarket 1907
        • Headington Hill 1903
        • Queen Street 1897
        • Snow (details)
        • The Wall
      • Stitched Work
        • ‘Missded’ Tokens
        • ‘Missded’ 1 – Tokens
        • ‘Missded’ 2 – Tokens
        • ‘Missded’ 3 – Tokens
      • Miscellaneous
        • Remembered Visit to Birkenau
        • Somewhere Between Writing and Trees
        • Tracks
        • Portfolio
        • Posters for Exhibitions
        • T (Crosses)
        • Backdrops
        • Correspondence (details)
    • Continuing Themes
      • Missded
      • Lists
      • Heavy Water Sleep
      • The Trees
      • The Gentleman’s Servant
      • Fragment
      • Notebook
  • Blog
  • Exhibitions
    • The Space Beyond Us
    • Kaleidoscope
    • A Line Drawn in Water
    • A Line Drawn in Water (Blog)
    • Mine the Mountain 3
    • Mine the Mountain 2
    • The Woods, Breathing
    • Snow
    • Echo
    • Murder
    • The Tourist
    • Dreamcatcher
    • Mine the Mountain
    • M8
    • Umbilical Light
    • The Gate
    • Creatures
    • Residue
    • A visit to Auschwitz
  • Video
    • The Gone Forest
    • Look, trees exist
    • Look, trees exist (WWI postcard)
    • Videos from ‘A Line Drawn in Water’
  • Family History
  • About Me
  • Subscribe to Nicholas Hedges
  • Eliot Press

The Material World

July 19, 2012 by Nicholas Hedges

“What, then, is this material world? Of what does it consist?”

So asks Tim Ingold, in his book, Being Alive, Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. It seems an obvious question, or rather, a question for which there is an obvious answer, but in terms of the field Material Culture it would seem to be not so straightforward. Citing a number of works on the subject, Ingold writes how “their engagements, for the most part, are not with the tangible stuff of craftsmen and manufacturers but with the abstract ruminations of philosophers and theorists.” Furthermore, “literature in anthropology and archaeology that deals explicitly with the subjects of materiality and material culture seems to have hardly anything to say about materials.” Ingold then goes on to cite an inventory of materials one might expect to see when dealing with this subject, as can be found in a book by Henry Hodges called Artefacts.

pottery
glazes
glass and enamels
copper and copper alloys
iron and steel
gold, silver, lead and mercury
stone
wood
fibres and threads
textiles and baskets
hides and leather
antler, bone, horn, ivory
dyes, pigments and paints
adhesives

In an array of books on his bookshelf, all dealing in some form with the subject of material culture, Ingold states that one looks in vain for any “comprehensible explanation of what ‘materiality’ actually means, or for any account of materials and their properties.” 

To cut a long story short, Ingold goes on to question what the material world actually is – thus the question at the top: “What, then, is this material world? Of what does it consist?”

He writes:

“Christopher Gosden suggests, we could divide it into two broad components: landscape and artefacts. Thus it seems that we have human minds on the one hand, and a material world of landscape and artefacts on the other. That, you might think, should cover just about everything. But does it? Consider, for a moment, what is left out. Starting with landscape, does this include the sky? Where do we put the sun, the moon and the stars? We can reach for the stars but cannot touch them: are they, then, material realities with which humans can make contact, or do they exist only for us in the mind? is the moon part of the material world for terrestrial travellers, or only for cosmonauts who touch down on the lunar landscape? How about sunlight? Life depends on it. But if sunlight were a constituent of the material world, then we would have to admit not only that the diurnal landscape differs materially from the nocturnal one, but also that the shadow of a landscape feature, such as a rock or tree, is as much a part of the material world as the feature itself. For creatures that live in the shade, it does indeed make a difference! What, then, of the air? When you breathe, or feel the wind on your face, are you engaging with the material world? When the fog descends, and everything around you looks dim and mysterious, has the material world changed, or are you just seeing the same world differently? Does rain belong to the material world, or only the puddles that it leaves in ditches and pot-holes? Does falling snow join the material world only once it settles on the ground? As engineers and builders know all too well, rain and frost can break up roads and buildings. How then can we claim that roads and buildings are part of the material world, if rain and frost are not? And where would we place fire and smoke, molten lava and volcanic ash, not to mention liquids of all kinds from ink to running water? … If, moreover, they are part of the material world, then the same must be true of my own body. So where does this fit in? If I and my body are one and the same, and if my body indeed partakes of the material world, then how can the body-that-I-am engage with that world?”

When I read this, I thought about the dig I went on last year at Bartlemas Chapel in Oxford, when I found a small but rather beautiful piece of mediaeval (I think) pottery.

Bartlemas Chapel Excavation

There are many ways in which one could interpret this find, but what I thought about was how this was like a missing piece of the present, and how, before it was lost to the soil, it had existed in a mediaeval present that was (save for the obvious differences) just like ours today. There was the wind, there were trees and flowers, the clouds, the sky and of course the sun, by whose light the beautiful glaze could be seen again, just as it had been by someone living hundreds of years ago. Reading what Tim Ingold has written about materiality and material culture above therefore made perfect sense.

And as regards my work with empathy and the importance in this respect of materiality and material culture, the idea of the body as part of the material world was also of interest. We are not set outside the material world but are an integral part – therefore it’s easier to engage empathetically with an individual through the objects those individuals once used. Empathy is as I’ve said before an augmented discourse between bodily experience and knowledge. Knowledge as Ingold writes derives through movement: “It is by moving that we know, and it is by moving, too, that we describe.” When I discovered the piece of pottery (through moving), I uncovered not only the object itself, but the material world by which it was once surrounded, including those people who once used it, or the person who even made it.

Filed Under: Archaeology, Lists, Trees Tagged With: Archaeology, Artefacts, Bartlemas Chapel, Empathy, Fragments, Landscape, Listmaking, Lists, Pottery, Stars, Tim Ingold

Geophysics and Henry Taunt

November 16, 2011 by Nicholas Hedges

Since working on the archaeological dig at Bartlemas Chapel, I’ve been looking for ways to create work based around my interpretations of the site. A starting point for my research is an image created through a Geophysical survey of the site.


It shows areas of high resistance (pale greys and whites) and areas of less resistance (dark greys and blacks), revealing patterns beneath the surface of the ground caused by the remnants of walls, buildings, ditches etc. Its indistinct aesthetic (vague shapes and outlines) is perhaps a metaphor for the way we perceive the past, which is itself, at best, always the most ill-defined and inexact picture.
Somewhere within this picture however were all the things we found, including the piece of mediaeval pottery below.


The contrast between the black and white of the resistance survey image and that of the red-orange glaze interests me as regards the allusion to what we know of the past as opposed to what actually happened.
This contrast also comes to mind when looking at photographs of Bartlemas Chapel taken by Henry Taunt in 1912.



It’s amazing to think that below the black and white surface of the photographs, beneath the ground, the same piece mediaeval of pottery is there, waiting to be discovered, along with the bones of those who were buried there centuries before. Zooming in, as if to get a closer look, the image begins to change, becoming indistinct like the resistance survey images.


Filed Under: Photography Tagged With: Bartlemas Chapel, Fragments, Geophysics, Pottery, Vintage Photographs

Radio Interview at Bartlemas Chapel

October 1, 2011 by Nicholas Hedges

The following interview was recorded with me as part of an outside broadcast at Bartlemas Chapel in East Oxford on 29th September. You can read more about the dig here (Archaeology in East Oxford website) and on my own project pages, Artefact.

Filed Under: Archaeology Tagged With: Archaeology, Bartlemas Chapel, Radio

Absent Presence

September 25, 2011 by Nicholas Hedges

See also: Artefact.

At a recent meeting with the East Oxford Archaeology Project we were given a short talk about an upcoming dig at Bartlemas Chapel. A number of things interested me in light of the work I’ve already done there, one of which was the image of a resistance survey carried out in the grounds of the chapel. At once, a sort of chain reaction of images flicked through my mind, which I’ve tried to recreate below.

The first image is a Resistance Survey image from Iffley village. The dark patches indicate areas of low resistance while the lighter patches indicate areas of high resistance – such as the remains of buildings, roads, walls etc. I like the fact that images such as these can reveal a footprint of the past, not only in terms of where structures such as these once stood, but where people once walked, following specific paths. What might today be just a large field where one can walk in any direction is revealed through techniques such as these as being a place where people walked along certain lines. The ground is revealed as a palimpsest of movement, where, just as fragments of pottery etc might be found, fragments of movement can also be revealed.

Ideas

Looking at a Resistance survey image (such as that above) during the meeting, I was reminded of an image from a previous work of mine which I exhibited last year. The image was part of an overall picture of the Belzec Death Camp in Poland, photographed from a plane in 1944. It was a place where in 1942, over half a million people were murdered, but walking there now, one cannot image that many people. Walking around the memorial, following a prescribed path, you find yourself looking in at the space enclosed, contemplating the half a million lines of movement that ended there. Where did these lines stretch back to? Where had they come from?

Thinking this way is one small way to establish empathy with those who died in places such as Belzec and the image below, when coupled with the image above resonates with this idea.

Ideas

The next image is a detail from a photograph taken of someone in 1903. This person has of course long since disappeared from the world and yet they remain. They aren’t of course visible in the places where they lived and worked (for example on Headington Hill where this image was taken) but through light (just as with electricity in the Reistance survey) their trace is revealed. The aesthetic link with the images above strengthens this connection.

Ideas

During my observation at Bartlemas Chapel last week, I wrote the following:

“The book on the sill is open at a text on St. Bartholomew. The words are silent on the page.
I read the first few words on the saint. I turn the page – again the ice-cream van. The page creaks like the pew I sat on. I can hear the words as I read them in my head, although of course they make no sound. I imagine hundreds and thousands of internal voices of people who have stood inside the chapel.”

Looking at the bible in the chapel, I saw the words as being like the fragmenetary image of past movement revealed through a Resistance survey, or the image of someone frozen in a photograph. These are words that in this small space have been heard over the course of hundreds of years; words that have mingled with the thoughts of those listening. Reading the bible within that space, I could hear the words in my mind – just as I could hear my thoughts – and yet everything was silent. (Silence here equates with (apparent) emptiness – the field where once there were buildings and people. Words read silently mirrors the electric current passing into the ground, revealing a pattern of movement beneath – lost movement, lost thoughts).

I tried to imagine the thoughts of those who’ve listened over countless generations. If they could be written down what would they tell us? After the meeting, I thought about the aesthetic of the Resistance survey and the photographs above, then pictured fragments of words in much the same way – just like the image below.

Ideas

Filed Under: Goethean Observations Tagged With: Archaeology, Bartlemas Chapel, Fragments, Geophysics, Goethean Observation, Silence

Bartlemas Chapel Observation

September 20, 2011 by Nicholas Hedges

Taken from Artefact – a website concerning Contemporary Art and Archaeology.

I’m making this initial visit to the chapel a few days before archaeological excavations are due to begin within its grounds. I’m interested in how my initial observations might be tied in with both the archaeology discovered there and the chapel’s history. How far is empathy an augmented discourse between bodily experience and knowledge?

As usual, I began by observing the chapel using a Goethean methodology, which – as if often the case – ended up following its own course.

Pre-Observation

Leaving Cowley Road and walking up the track to the chapel was like leaving the modern world behind; not completely for the outside around the chapel and here inside once can still hear the traffic humming like an overhead cable carrying electricity.

The first thing I notice when entering the chapel is the smell; the smell of age, of the past – the smell of the rooms in the church I’d attended as a child. Old books, paper and damp.

The light is slowly beginning to fade being as it is 6pm and the weather grey and raining.

I shall endeavour to carry out the observation without electric light for as long as is possible.

Part 1

The chapel is small comprising two parts divided by a screen. The main door on the chapel’s western side is locked and one enters through a small door on the left hand (north) side. (I’m going to carry out my observation inside rather than out – not least because of the rain, but also because I can easily record outside at a later date).

The walls are all whitewashed; they are rough and bumpy beneath revealing the stone. There are five windows, each of which is arched and through which the last light of the day is creeping. Behind me to my left is a large door in front of which are stacked wooden chairs – no doubt for congregations when services are held here, which they still are. Along the left hand wall more chairs are lined up in a row – eight of them. At the end facing me and in front of the screen are two small pews. Running alongside the right hand wall is another row of chairs – nine of them. There is a radiator, an old wooden cupboard on the side of which are electric sockets and a light switch. I’m sitting on a small wooden bench. In the corner to my right is a large red candle holder replete with candle – no doubt for ceremonial purposes.

Ahead, either side of the doorway through the screen are two small stools. Beyond the screen, from my position, I can see a wooden altar with a crucifix and four candles. A stool stands before them on which rests a box. Above the altar is a window and on the left and right hand walls are also windows. In the wall in this half of the building, on the right hand side from where I am sitting is another window upon the sill of which – which is deep – sits a book, open on a small lectern. Another lectern stands next to me on my right with a book containing the names of visitors. I write my name in it now.

I get up and walk. The hum of the traffic is weak like the light. I can hear the wind rustling the trees outside. Outside the window above the book is an apple tree covered with fruit. My footsteps echo.

I measure the first part of the chapel which is approximately 8 paces. The floor in this part of the chapel is parquet. In the part ahead of me it’s stone.

The pew creaks as I sit down. There are two small pews divided in two to accommodate two people. There are candle stands with low candles (burned down) on my left, a crucifix on a pole and a blue bottle of gas. On the right hand side is another blue bottle, two more well-used candles, four chairs and a picture of Christ. I see now that the altar is stone. Either side in the corners are two wood burners. The window in the left wall is narrower than the others and has a deep sill. This part of the chapel again measures approximately 8 paces.

On a window sill (right) is the curled body of a dead fly. Outside I see the apple trees and the leaves on the wet grass.

The altar is covered by a cloth – green and another white one beneath.

The bible on what I now see is a folding lectern is open at John. Tomorrow’s reading, John 3:13-17.

The ceiling is wooden with numerous coloured shields placed between the beams. The light is fading and it’s getting harder to see.

As I stand before the altar my face is drawn up to the window above it and to the sky. I turn to my left and see the old building that stands alongside. The wind stirs again. There is a white iron work chair in the garden outside. No-one is sitting in it of course.

The window above the large door in the western end of the chapel is smaller than all the others. Again I find my eyes drawn up towards it, to the pale grey light of the sky. There is a large hole in the wall on the right hand side (as I look at it) no doubt where a wooden bolt was once used to secure the church.

There are two circles, unwhitewashed either side of the door.

There are four ‘arches’ supporting the ceiling. The wood appears to be very old. The stone of the floor around the altar is patterned almost as if something has spilled upon it and not quite dried.

The width of the chapel is 7 paces.

I look again at the book full of names and dates – someone from as far away as Australia has visited here. In just a few pages we’re back at the start of 2005. I think of what I’ve done in these few pages – I think of the people I know who have recently passed away.

As the light fades the windows become a stronger presence as they hold what remains of the light outside. I can hear the chimes of an ice-cream van – a sound from my childhood. But although the windows are dominant, I don’t find myself looking beyond – just at them.

Echoes and footsteps. Car horns.

Part 2

I allow the cars and the sounds of the modern world to fall away and instead I listen only to the wind blowing through the trees. I look outside at the trees. I imagine the fruit trees across hundreds of seasons, bearing fruit, dropping the fruit, surviving the winter, blooming again in the spring. I imagine how much more important apple trees would have been long ago; a vital source of food rather than something one might idly pick while strolling past. The book on the sill is open at a text on St. Bartholomew. The words are silent on the page.

I read the first few words on the saint. I turn the page – again the ice-cream van. The page creaks like the pew I sat on. I can hear the words as I read them in my head, although of course they make no sound. I imagine hundreds and thousands of internal voices of people who have stood inside the chapel.

The shadow cast by my hand is more prominent here before the window.

I pick a spot on the left hand side of the chapel looking towards the altar. I imagine all those who have stood here in my place over the centuries, looking to their right at whatever was outside; up ahead through the window; at the others standing there with them; and I begin to imagine those other people. I begin to try and imagine their presence.

The crows outside help dispel the modern world. I think of the floor – how it would have been. I imagine the city behind me, Oxford as it was a few hundred years ago.

I move around the chapel before the screen and glance behind me to the side and up ahead and where I see the walls and windows I imagine people. Each glance is accompanied with a thought – my thoughts.

I try and get a sense of my body in relation to the chapel.

The shadows grow across the floor, blurring to become the first signs of nightfall. Forms in the chapel, like the legs of the chairs against the walls begin to disappear. Everything becomes a shadow – perhaps even me.

I imagine the large locked door being opened and people filing into the light behind. I picture that light filling the chapel, chasing away the shadows.

I’m aware of my body – how my back is aching – how I’m hungry.

The green of the leaves outside is still very visible. Everything is brown, green and grey.

My shadow is faint on the wall.

I move to stand before the altar. I turn and face the large door. Lines of sight from people long since gone still linger. I turn and face the altar. My eyes are drawn to the window, following these eye lines behind me.

I imagine the candles flickering, casting shadows on the walls as the light continues to fade. These candles which are little more than stubs of wax with short blackened wicks and puddles of wax around them.

The sound of the traffic cannot be stopped. It’s always present like interference. The only way to hear the past is with my body.

Part 3

(Rather hard as I can hardly see to write.)

Fleeting, embodied shadows.

I try and think of myself as the chapel. There is, like everything, an outside (exterior) and an inside (interior). I can feel my body – my presence – not so much as me but as something within the chapel.

Contact with the floor, with the furniture means that the chapel and I are one.

NB I have to put on the light – and only then am I aware how dark it is outside. The shift from an external light and interior dark to interior light and external dark is striking. When I turn off the light it’s reversed.

I’m aware of my heart as I sit with my eyes closed – of my breathing. My back against the wall – my breathing and heartbeat becomes that of the chapel.

Exterior / interior.
Beyond the chapel and inside.
Beyond my own body and inside.
A reversal of the two.
Interior voice reading / exterior voice listening.

With the lights on, the light beyond the window is blueish above the door. Up ahead, the window above the altar is dark.

Again there is almost a grain in the building – of sight. Looking towards the altar one is aware of the individual; then turning round, of a crowd.

Filed Under: A Line Drawn in Water, Goethean Observations, Trees Tagged With: Archaeology, Bartlemas Chapel, Goethean Observation

© Nicholas Hedges 2006-20

Subscribe
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2023 · Outreach Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in