I live in an old park rangers home of the Hackney Marsh, while my studio is located just on the edge of Walthamstow Marsh. This stretch of land is my home and site for creative practice. I am applying for this funding to create a series of 4 creative half-day walks/pilgrimages that explore the changing landscape, character, colour and story of Hackney & Walthamstow Marsh, tracking and following it throughout the Wheel of the Year (Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Autumn Equinox & Winter Solstice).

I have been recently awarded a DYCP grant from AC specifically to research the marshland as a site for artistic practice, looking at local foraged materials, dyes and inks as well as natural techniques for making. I would like to share this site-specific artistic & material research into the walks by integrating crafting activities (cord making, basketry, land art, spinning, etc) and painting with natural inks out of chosen materials that are prevalent for each season.

For the past 4 years I have been apprenticing from indigenous wisdom keepers the ancient ways communing with land through ceremony and ritual. Hence, the proposed walks will be run very much as a rite of passage, a pilgrimage, leaning into the seasonal wisdom and energy of these vast urban commons for guidance and learnings. This is how we used to live for hundreds of years and I am interested in creating containers for such communion in our contemporary context. Additionally, I will be bringing in foraging and myth knowledge as well as some cooked treats made from the beings that could be found on our walk. So we will not only walk – we will make art, we will craft and we will nibble on delights – all harvested and found on the marsh.

For the end of the walk, the participants will also be gifted to take home a small bottle of seasonal natural ink and herbal medicine that was foraged from the marsh, so that they could take a piece of the marsh with them.