Additions:
http://www.peninsula.me.uk/indyphoto/?p=14∞
Edited on 2006-10-13 06:56:55 by LottieChild
Additions:
PresentationSpeach
Edited on 2006-10-13 06:51:38 by LottieChild
Additions:
Accidental Holiday is a guide book and guided walk in Greenwich, in the area around the Dome.
KeyElements
Deletions:
Accidental Holiday is a guide book and guided walk in North Greenwich
Edited on 2006-10-13 06:48:02 by LottieChild
Additions:
Accidental Holiday is a guide book and guided walk in North Greenwich
Accidental Holiday
Accidental Holiday is a guide to the Greenwich Peninsula created at a time when the Peninsula is poised for dramatic change in the form of a “ master planned community” . Consisting of a walk and suggested activities this guide invites you to engage with the area in playful ways that call into question the appropriate uses of public space. It is the result of collaborative research that brought together people with a particular link to the area, each with their own perspectives. They included: a local liberal democrat councillor, children and parents from Millennium Primary School, local residents and workers, employees of the company developing the area - Meridian Delta Ltd and local media arts company Independent Photography who commissioned the project. Together we took outings across the peninsula: engaging with each other and the environment. Our activities raised discussion of pertinent issues which you will now find printed throughout the guide.
All over the Greenwich Peninsula, plants are bursting through fences and breaking through concrete. Sometimes in big cities, the people are doing little more than surviving, while in forgotten corners a diverse array of plants and animals, birds and insects are really thriving in a complex web of interdependence. This leads to the question, what do people need in order to thrive in the city? Do we need to copy some of the characteristics of wild and feral plant and animal life and be:
lawless devious exuberant curious trusting
challenging risky nurturing patient primal
Inspired by wild things, this guide invites you to behave in a variety of ways that contrast with the increasing homogenisation of public space. This behaviour aims to retain some of the complexity that is lost when concrete asserts itself and when public space is privatised, controlled and sanitized.
Once marshland, the peninsula is always changing. Places you are directed to, may no longer exist. Many things including a large farm, market gardens, houses and allotments as well as a gas company, existed here before the current developments. Records dating back to 1622 make reference to nettles and brambles in the area . Are wild plants and animals so persistent that they will thrive here long after the present phase of development? Or do we need to provide the right conditions for the wild and feral plants of the future?
Lottie Child July 2006
WALK- some preliminaries
The walk will take around four hours, finishing with a campfire on the beach. You may want to gather a few adults and children together for it, as some of the activities are more fun in a group. You will find it helpful to carry a few lengths of string with you and could also bring a picnic. Rather than carrying it with you, why not hide it in the bushes at the far end of the car park at North Greenwich tube, behind the blank billboards. The walk will return you there later.
Deliberately testing socially imposed boundaries can result in risk and insight, responsibility for one’s own safety and those around you are essential. Please be alert when you are climbing on fences and walls, be polite to security guards and be careful tending the fire.
Start at the entrance to the Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Park on the Thames Path, off John Harrison Way. The ecology park is an important wetland site, protecting and nurturing plants and animals whose UK populations are falling.
The first activity takes place on the foreshore directly below the ecology park. To get down to the water’s edge, either climb over the fence, or, with the Thames in front of you, turn right along the Thames Path until you get to a gap in the fence. Be careful on the rocks as they are slippery and wobbly. Turn left along the shore and head for a concrete area and a rusty sewage outlet pipe with a hinged opening. This pipe is for waste water from the ecology park.
CURIOUS ACTIVITY: sit very quietly next to the pipe, notice the sounds, and take in your surroundings. Then lift the lid at the entrance to the pipe and peer in. Is there a frog inside?
RESOURCEFUL ACTIVITY: collect the longest, largest pieces of driftwood you can find. You will use them later to make a shelter. Driftwood is often found high on the shore, in the undergrowth where the tide has tossed it. Get a few useful pieces over the fence, turn right, with the river behind you, and carry them along the Thames Path. Turn left at John Harrison Way and walk along until you reach Central Park.
You have arrived at the site of the CHALLENGING ACTIVITY: this is where the lengths of string will be useful. Using the wood you have collected, make a shelter among the trees.
PLAYFUL ACTVITY: if you have children with you, ask them to show you how to play, on the low walls that run down the middle of Central Park. Or, try walking along a wall and jumping off the end into the ivy, getting up and running back to the beginning of the wall and repeating this until you feel like moving on. You might also like to try some guerrilla gardening in Central Park. During a research outing, local children planted sunflowers and a nettle.
EXHUBERANT ACTIVITY: if the fountain has water in it and it’s a hot day, take your shoes and socks off and get in. If the fountain is switched off, you might have fun playing football with a pebble. During the research for this guide, 23 people played in the fountains next to North Greenwich Station, aware that security guards would normally intervene.
PLAYFUL ACTIVITY 2: cross the road from the fountain and play on the bike racks in the car park. Try balancing, swinging, going under and over the racks. Then head over to the blank billboards at the back of the disused car park. In midsummer, you will see lavender, crickets and, towards the end of summer, blackberries. You may also see empty fried chicken boxes – a sign of foxes. Retrieve any food and drink you have hidden in the bushes. During a research outing, people had a picnic with homemade elderflower cordial and food made with organic vegetables given away at the end of a fruit and veg Market.
PATIENT ACTVITY: here you have a good view of Canary Wharf and the Millennium Dome. If you stay very still and silent, a mouse might emerge from the undergrowth. When you are ready, with Canary Wharf in front of you, turn right and right again onto West Parkside. Walk past the blue fence and notice the diversity of plant life bursting through the fine mesh. You will come to a cut-through on your right. Turn down it until you join Millennium Way.
FORAGING ACTIVITY: opposite you is Boord Street. Cross the road towards the clump of trees and bushes. From the middle of July, the Mirabelle plums will be yellow and ripe, on the second tree from the road. When you’ve eaten some plums with the tree in front of you, turn left heading south along Millennium Way until you get to Old School Close. On your right is the Victorian school building that now houses artefacts from the Horniman Museum. Straight ahead of you, is the site that used to be allotments for workers at the gasworks. It has now been boarded off by English Partnerships.
LAWLESS ACTIVITY: there is a metal gate ahead with a large concrete block, conveniently placed for you to step on as you carefully climb over. This bio-diverse area provides a refuge for many plants and animals including foxes, butterflies, skylarks and insects. Foxes have made pathways through the grass. Choose a fox trail to follow. In mid to late summer you will find plenty of blackberries as well as horseradish, which looks like a tough dock leaf and has delicate white flowers.
On leaving this area, turn back along the way you came and walk up Millennium Way, past the gas containers on your left. Then turn right onto Edmund Halley Way and left through the car park. Follow ‘desire lines’ places where people have walked across beds planted with Ivy to reveal the vital knowledge that eluded planners when designing the area, that is, the most direct routes from A to B bypassing traffic islands and barriers. Ahead of you is The London Diner Company. If you stop to chat, you may meet Emma or Kenny and you could ask them what they need in order to thrive.
DEVIOUS ACTIVITY: head towards the underground station but don’t go in. Turn left and walk along with the steel and glass building on your right. To your left, you will see a traffic island, covered with small trees and bushes. There is an opening at the far end. You may want to go into the hidey hole in the bushes and see if there is anything interesting inside. Have a nap, play a game, have fun.Try not to be seen as you leave the cover of the bushes and watch out for buses, as they won’t be expecting anyone to emerge here.
PRIMAL ACTIVITY: Head out of the station, in the direction of the Dome. Turn left, cross the road and you will see a sign for the Millennium Motel pointing to the right. Take the path, bear right and follow the concrete wall till you get to Blackwall Lane. Then head down to the river, turn right and then left. Go down towards the jetty and slightly to the left, walking over all kinds of flotsam and jetsam thrown up by the tide. You will find a good spot near the water to have a campfire. Look around for some dry wood: try to collect different sizes- small, medium and large - to get the fire going.
Campfire Tips
• Clear a 3 metre (10-foot) diameter area for the dry wood
• Remove any other grass, twigs, needles, firewood nearby that could catch fire.
• Ideally, build a circle of rocks around your fire, to keep it from spreading.
• Don’t build a campfire on a windy day. Sparks and other burning material can travel large distances.
• Try to keep your fire to a reasonable and manageable size.
• When you've finished, make sure you put out the fire by pouring on lots of water.
• Don't leave the fire until it's out cold and make sure you don’t walk away from any smouldering embers.
At this place which is soon to change forever, at the water’s edge, by the fire, surrounded by a chaos of undergrowth, plants and objects displaced by the constantly shifting water there is a view of the sky and the wide open river as well as Canary Wharf - a great spot for feeling like you’re on an accidental holiday.
Travel to and from the Greenwich Peninsula
North Greenwich Tube
Buses 188,108,161,422,4722,486
Excellent local refreshments can be found at
London Diner Company at North Greenwich Tube
Millennium Motel on Blackwall Lane
Pilot Inn off West Parkside
To know more about the Greenwich Peninsula try one of Rich Sylvester’s guided walks exploring the area’s hidden history. richs@onetel.com
Deletions:
Accidental Holiday is a guide book and guided walk in North Greenwich to take place summer 2006
The Guide focuses on public space and resources, proposing playful ways to live and thrive inspired by feral plant and animal life. Accidental Holiday looks at the area's potential for guerrilla gardening, communal composting, tree house dwelling and eating free food as research into the economic and infrastructural redevelopments taking place.
An accidental holiday is a day when your plans unexpectedly change leaving you with free unstructured time, an occasion when the world is full of interesting things and you are free to experience them.
For this guide I'm developing a methodology for collaborative meaning making on the political and social factors at play in a chosen locality. We move through the place integrating the physical with the intellectual engaging in unfamiliure tasks requiring lawless, deviant, childish behaviour. This results in deepening of engagement with the locality, one's own senses and other group members and provides insights that would be unatianable in a conference situation.
Key Elements
Introducing physical movement and creative interventions with, in , through, over boundaries and structures - physical, social, psychological to develop thinking and behaviour that is embodied and responsive treating obstacles as opportunities for creative engagement.
Contributions from diverse interested participants in the form of special skill, information relevant to the particular issues of the location, personal expereince related to topic of discussion.
Insights from the training sessions are presented in a map, a framework that contextualises the insights gained socially and politically.
presently applying this methodology in Berlin on the topics of risk and freedom of movement see GuideToRiskInBerlin and in North Greenwich on the topic of public green space.
Edited on 2006-09-19 08:47:50 by LottieChild
Additions:
There are more Peninsula projects here
http://www.peninsula.me.uk∞
Edited on 2006-07-18 03:40:09 by LottieChild
Additions:
InvitedPeople
Edited on 2006-07-18 03:23:26 by LottieChild
Additions:
For this guide I'm developing a methodology for collaborative meaning making on the political and social factors at play in a chosen locality. We move through the place integrating the physical with the intellectual engaging in unfamiliure tasks requiring lawless, deviant, childish behaviour. This results in deepening of engagement with the locality, one's own senses and other group members and provides insights that would be unatianable in a conference situation.
ThePlan
Deletions:
To develop this guide I'm developing a methodology for collaborative meaning making on the political and social factors at play in a chosen locality. We move through the place integrating the physical with the intellectual engaging in unfamiliure tasks requiring lawless, deviant, childish behaviour. This results in deepening of engagement with the locality, one's own senses and other group members and provides insights that would be unatianable in a conference situation.
Edited on 2006-07-13 08:51:50 by LottieChild
Additions:
To develop this guide I'm developing a methodology for collaborative meaning making on the political and social factors at play in a chosen locality. We move through the place integrating the physical with the intellectual engaging in unfamiliure tasks requiring lawless, deviant, childish behaviour. This results in deepening of engagement with the locality, one's own senses and other group members and provides insights that would be unatianable in a conference situation.
Key Elements
Introducing physical movement and creative interventions with, in , through, over boundaries and structures - physical, social, psychological to develop thinking and behaviour that is embodied and responsive treating obstacles as opportunities for creative engagement.
Contributions from diverse interested participants in the form of special skill, information relevant to the particular issues of the location, personal expereince related to topic of discussion.
Insights from the training sessions are presented in a map, a framework that contextualises the insights gained socially and politically.
presently applying this methodology in Berlin on the topics of risk and freedom of movement see GuideToRiskInBerlin and in North Greenwich on the topic of public green space.
Edited on 2006-05-26 00:23:13 by LottieChild
Deletions:
TimeSpentResearchingWithKids
Edited on 2006-05-22 21:53:40 by LottieChild
Additions:
Commissioned by Independent Photography
Deletions:
Accidental Holiday is commissioned by Independent Photography
Edited on 2006-05-21 01:51:51 by LottieChild
Additions:
The Guide focuses on public space and resources, proposing playful ways to live and thrive inspired by feral plant and animal life. Accidental Holiday looks at the area's potential for guerrilla gardening, communal composting, tree house dwelling and eating free food as research into the economic and infrastructural redevelopments taking place.
Deletions:
The Guide will focus on public space and resources, proposing playful ways to live and thrive inspired by feral plant and animal life. Accidental Holiday looks at the area's potential for guerrilla gardening, communal composting, tree house dwelling and eating free food as research into the economic and infrastructural redevelopments taking place.
Edited on 2006-05-21 01:50:03 by LottieChild
Additions:
Accidental Holiday is a guide book and guided walk in North Greenwich to take place summer 2006
The Guide will focus on public space and resources, proposing playful ways to live and thrive inspired by feral plant and animal life. Accidental Holiday looks at the area's potential for guerrilla gardening, communal composting, tree house dwelling and eating free food as research into the economic and infrastructural redevelopments taking place.
An accidental holiday is a day when your plans unexpectedly change leaving you with free unstructured time, an occasion when the world is full of interesting things and you are free to experience them.
Accidental Holiday is commissioned by Independent Photography
http://www.independentphotography.org.uk/peninsula/∞
Edited on 2006-05-17 01:05:09 by LottieChild
Additions:
WalkWithRichSylvester
Deletions:
Recap - Walk with Rich Sylvester
I went for a walk with Rich Sylvester yesterday. We met a North Greenwich tube and bought tea at the snack stand. He then led me to a grass hill quite near the water. I told him I’m compiling a guided tour and booklet combining people’s stories, thoughts and ways of seeing the local area. That I wanted to talk with him, find shared interests and see the places hear the things he’s really excited about. He explained the idea of story sticks, he uses them on a walk with children he to collect things along the way and that later remind them of where they have been allowing them to create a story from it. This is inspired by Australian aboriginal tradition.
He picked a tiny bright pink vetch flower and said if I put this on the board and later we could rememebr that we sat on the hill, listening to the sound of the birds singing, gradually people coming back from work walked to their cars until in the end there were no more cars left. We identified the song of a blackbird impersonating a lorry reversing. I liked this as an indication of the way manmade and natural urban and rural can’t be prized apart but are intricately fused together in perpetual process. It was a great place to sit, we had the view of a large mound of earth covered with grass and weeds, and on our left the Millennium Motel that is now legendary in my mind a real gem, with people living in vehicles. I asked rich if he felt that before an area is developed there was more scope for autonomous activity, the perhaps the rules are relaxed a bit before the transformation. We came back to that later he told me that there are three? Security firms working in the area, which is funny coz there seems little to police. I do remember two security guards gleefully telling me off for locking my bike to the wrong thing, a few weeks ago. There was a story connected to that which I don’t think we got very far with, our conversation was going off in so many directions. Rich suggested we walk down to the water’s edge. He mentioned that it was low tide. By the water there was a line of flotsam and jetsam we clambered over a stack of thin branches that had been nuzzled up the beech by the tide. He said they make a fire together on the beach at the end of his story telling/workshops. He showed me some of the objects he has found on the beach including clay pipe fragments and a coconut. I’d seen one by the water further down in a previous recce We talked about a possible ‘source of the coconuts’ he thought maybe it was Southall as an Indian tradition is to place a coconut in the river in honour of someone we can’t be with either because they are far away or they’ve died. Then a moment of silence between us, at the water’s edge in the cooling air surrounded by displaced undergrowth, plants and objects in a chaos produced by the constantly shifting water. We walked on crunchy debris Rich mentioned that the people on his walks may be wearing heels. I was wearing delicate leather slippers in gold covered in sequins. This lead us to talk of the freedom to wander as a privilege and a quote from Rebecca Solnit’s Book Wanderlust came to mind. “There are three prerequisites to taking a walk- that is, to going out into the world to walk for pleasure. One must have free time, a place to go, and a body unhindered by illness or social restraints”
Rich reflected on his wanderings as a privilege, he said he is often out in the evening, can go anywhere without worry. But by no means everyone can go for a walk. I would change what Solnit says slightly, it seems to me that we need a body ‘not too hindered’ by illness or social restraint. To varying degrees, we all live with illness and constraint. To muster the will to begin a walk may go some way to working with and moving beyond the limits these states impose on us. Perhaps a good way to engage with a place is as you are. Rather than needing special skills or special clothing: wearing heels, having a hangover or a child with a tummy ache require that you find your own ways to move, be in a locality, to meet your own challenges and victories.
We then decided to walk along central park in order to critique the management of green spaces this came up because Rich offered me some young oak trees to plant guerrilla gardening style. I plan to plant vegetables in the flowerbeds around here, I wanted to be sure there was enough water and untended ground to make this viable. Our route to the park was guided by what Rich called ‘desire line’. Places where people have walked across beds planted with Ivy to reveal the vital knowledge that eluded planners when designing the area that is the most direct routes to and from the station.
I told Rich about the walk I took with children aged 6 and 7 from millennium primary school looking for trees to climb and the ideal tree for a tree house. The kids had appraised the suitability of trees around their school, identifying the building of a platform as a good method and a willow tree between their school and the ecology park as a possible host. Most of the newly planted trees are too small and young to sustain a structure and Rich suggested another possibility, of collecting large lengths of driftwood and lashing them between small trees to create a platform. He mentioned using a collar under the ropes to protect the bark. We paced the distance between trees and Rich felt sure we’d be able to get the right kind of timber.
Looking at the Ivy beds we saw the irrigation system nestling in it. We both questioned the sense in watering ivy. The areas of grass in central park were wonderfully lush and quite diverse. Evidence of strimming the edges may have been the sign of less than sensitive care of the plant life. Any covert vegetables wouldn’t stand a chance against decapitation here. The drinking water fountain isn’t functioning properly; pressing back the smooth metal structure creates a gentle dribble i doubt most people have the desire for intimacy with aluminium needed to suck a few drops of moisture form the brushed metal. Issues of water use, soil and plant life converge here, more on that later.
We then went to the location of the old allotments, a breathtakingly lush biodiverse acre, surrounded by roads and concrete. Again we followed in the footsteps of local experts, the foxes traversing of the place had made visible paths in the long grass. The evening light was waning and we could make out the song of a lark merging with the traffic’s roar.
Edited on 2006-05-17 00:22:46 by LottieChild
Additions:
I went for a walk with Rich Sylvester yesterday. We met a North Greenwich tube and bought tea at the snack stand. He then led me to a grass hill quite near the water. I told him I’m compiling a guided tour and booklet combining people’s stories, thoughts and ways of seeing the local area. That I wanted to talk with him, find shared interests and see the places hear the things he’s really excited about. He explained the idea of story sticks, he uses them on a walk with children he to collect things along the way and that later remind them of where they have been allowing them to create a story from it. This is inspired by Australian aboriginal tradition.
He picked a tiny bright pink vetch flower and said if I put this on the board and later we could rememebr that we sat on the hill, listening to the sound of the birds singing, gradually people coming back from work walked to their cars until in the end there were no more cars left. We identified the song of a blackbird impersonating a lorry reversing. I liked this as an indication of the way manmade and natural urban and rural can’t be prized apart but are intricately fused together in perpetual process. It was a great place to sit, we had the view of a large mound of earth covered with grass and weeds, and on our left the Millennium Motel that is now legendary in my mind a real gem, with people living in vehicles. I asked rich if he felt that before an area is developed there was more scope for autonomous activity, the perhaps the rules are relaxed a bit before the transformation. We came back to that later he told me that there are three? Security firms working in the area, which is funny coz there seems little to police. I do remember two security guards gleefully telling me off for locking my bike to the wrong thing, a few weeks ago. There was a story connected to that which I don’t think we got very far with, our conversation was going off in so many directions. Rich suggested we walk down to the water’s edge. He mentioned that it was low tide. By the water there was a line of flotsam and jetsam we clambered over a stack of thin branches that had been nuzzled up the beech by the tide. He said they make a fire together on the beach at the end of his story telling/workshops. He showed me some of the objects he has found on the beach including clay pipe fragments and a coconut. I’d seen one by the water further down in a previous recce We talked about a possible ‘source of the coconuts’ he thought maybe it was Southall as an Indian tradition is to place a coconut in the river in honour of someone we can’t be with either because they are far away or they’ve died. Then a moment of silence between us, at the water’s edge in the cooling air surrounded by displaced undergrowth, plants and objects in a chaos produced by the constantly shifting water. We walked on crunchy debris Rich mentioned that the people on his walks may be wearing heels. I was wearing delicate leather slippers in gold covered in sequins. This lead us to talk of the freedom to wander as a privilege and a quote from Rebecca Solnit’s Book Wanderlust came to mind. “There are three prerequisites to taking a walk- that is, to going out into the world to walk for pleasure. One must have free time, a place to go, and a body unhindered by illness or social restraints”
Rich reflected on his wanderings as a privilege, he said he is often out in the evening, can go anywhere without worry. But by no means everyone can go for a walk. I would change what Solnit says slightly, it seems to me that we need a body ‘not too hindered’ by illness or social restraint. To varying degrees, we all live with illness and constraint. To muster the will to begin a walk may go some way to working with and moving beyond the limits these states impose on us. Perhaps a good way to engage with a place is as you are. Rather than needing special skills or special clothing: wearing heels, having a hangover or a child with a tummy ache require that you find your own ways to move, be in a locality, to meet your own challenges and victories.
We then decided to walk along central park in order to critique the management of green spaces this came up because Rich offered me some young oak trees to plant guerrilla gardening style. I plan to plant vegetables in the flowerbeds around here, I wanted to be sure there was enough water and untended ground to make this viable. Our route to the park was guided by what Rich called ‘desire line’. Places where people have walked across beds planted with Ivy to reveal the vital knowledge that eluded planners when designing the area that is the most direct routes to and from the station.
Looking at the Ivy beds we saw the irrigation system nestling in it. We both questioned the sense in watering ivy. The areas of grass in central park were wonderfully lush and quite diverse. Evidence of strimming the edges may have been the sign of less than sensitive care of the plant life. Any covert vegetables wouldn’t stand a chance against decapitation here. The drinking water fountain isn’t functioning properly; pressing back the smooth metal structure creates a gentle dribble i doubt most people have the desire for intimacy with aluminium needed to suck a few drops of moisture form the brushed metal. Issues of water use, soil and plant life converge here, more on that later.
Deletions:
I went for a walk with Rich Sylvester yesterday. We met a North Greenwich tube and bought tea at the snack stand. He then led me to a grass hill quite near the water. I told him I’m compiling a guided tour and booklet combining people’s stories, thoughts and ways of seeing the local area. That I wanted to talk with him, find shared interests and see the places hear the things he’s really excited about. He explained the idea of story sticks, I’m not sure if that’s what he called them. Basically he get a piece of card and sticks double sided sticky tape to it, on a walk with children he asks them to collect things along the way to stick on the card and that later remind them of where they have been and allow them to create a story from it. I liked this and said I’d like to use the idea. He said that if its wet you can put plants in notches in the board or tie things onto a stick. This is inspired by Australian aboriginal tradition.
He picked a tiny bright pink vetch flower and said if I put this on the board and later I could remember that lottie and I sat in the hill, listening to the sound of the birds gradually people coming back from work walked to their cars until in the end there were no more cars left. We identified the song of a blackbird impersonating a lorry reversing. I liked this as an indication of the way manmade and natural urban and rural can’t be prized apart but are intricately fused together in perpetual process. It was a great place to sit we had the view of a large mound of earth covered with grass and weeds, and on our left the Millennium Motel that is now legendary in my mind a real gem, with people living in vehicles. I asked rich if he felt that before an area is developed there was more scope for autonomous activity, the perhaps the rules are relaxed a bit before the transformation. We came back to that later he told me that there are three? Security firms working in the area, which is funny coz there seems little to police. I do remember two security guards gleefully telling me off for locking my bike to the wrong thing, a few weeks ago. There was a story connected to that which I don’t think we got very far with. Rich suggested we walk down to the water’s edge. He mentioned that it was low tide. By the water there was a line of flotsam and jetsam we clambered over a stack of thin branches that had been nuzzled up the beech by the tide. He said they make a fire together on the beach at the end of his story telling/workshops. He showed me some of the objects he has found on the beach including clay pipe fragments and a coconut. I’d seen one by the water further down in a previous recce We talked about a possible ‘source of the coconuts’ he thought maybe it was Southall as an Indian tradition is to place a coconut in the river in honour of someone we can’t be with either because they are far away or they’ve died. Then a moment of silence between us, at the water’s edge in the cooling air surrounded by displaced undergrowth, plants and objects in a chaos produced by the constantly shifting water. We walked on crunchy debris Rich mentioned that the people on his walks may be wearing heels. I was wearing delicate leather slippers in gold covered in sequins. This lead us to talk of the freedom to wander as a privilege and a quote from Rebecca Solnit’s Book Wanderlust came to mind. “There are three prerequisites to taking a walk- that is, to going out into the world to walk for pleasure. One must have free time, a place to go, and a body unhindered by illness or social restraints”
Rich reflected on his wanderings as a privilege, he said he out in the evening, can go anywhere without worry. But by no means everyone can go for a walk. I would change what Solnit says slightly, it seems to me that we need a body ‘not too hindered’ by illness or social restraint. To varying degrees, we all live with illness and constraint. To muster the will to begin a walk may go some way to working with and moving beyond the limits these states impose on us. Perhaps a good way to engage with a place is as you are. Rather than needing special skills or special clothing: wearing heels, having a hangover or a child with a tummy ache require that you find your own ways to move, be in a locality, to meet your own challenges and victories.
We then decided to walk along central park in order to critique the management of green spaces this came up because Rich offered me some young oak trees for me to plant guerrilla gardening style. I plan to plant vegetables in the flowerbeds around here I wanted to be sure there was enough water and untended ground to make this viable. Our route to the park was guided by what Rich called ‘desire line’. Places where people have walked across beds planted with Ivy to reveal the vital knowledge that eluded planners when designing the area that is the most direct routes to and from the station.
Looking at the Ivy beds we saw the irrigation system nestling in it. We both questioned the sense in watering ivy. The areas of grass in central park were wonderfully lush and quite diverse. Evidence of strimming the edges may have been the sign of less than sensitive care of the plant life. Any covert vegetables wouldn’t stand a chance against decapitation here. The drinking water fountain isn’t functioning properly; pressing back the smooth metal structure creates a gentle dribble. The desire for intimacy with aluminium that one would need to suck a few drops of moisture would require a sexual fetish for brushed metal. Issues of water use, soil and plant life converge here, more on that later.
Edited on 2006-05-15 02:50:39 by LottieChild
Additions:
I went for a walk with Rich Sylvester yesterday. We met a North Greenwich tube and bought tea at the snack stand. He then led me to a grass hill quite near the water. I told him I’m compiling a guided tour and booklet combining people’s stories, thoughts and ways of seeing the local area. That I wanted to talk with him, find shared interests and see the places hear the things he’s really excited about. He explained the idea of story sticks, I’m not sure if that’s what he called them. Basically he get a piece of card and sticks double sided sticky tape to it, on a walk with children he asks them to collect things along the way to stick on the card and that later remind them of where they have been and allow them to create a story from it. I liked this and said I’d like to use the idea. He said that if its wet you can put plants in notches in the board or tie things onto a stick. This is inspired by Australian aboriginal tradition.
Deletions:
I went for a walk with Rich Sylvester yesterday. W met a North Greenwich tube and bought tea at the snack stand. He then led me to a grass hill quite near the water. I told him I’m compiling a guided tour and booklet combining people’s stories, thoughts and ways of seeing the local area. That I wanted to talk with him, find shared interests and see the places hear the things he’s really excited about. He explained the idea of story sticks, I’m not sure if that’s what he called them. Basically he get a piece of card and sticks double sided sticky tape to it, on a walk with children he asks them to collect things along the way to stick on the card and that later remind them of where they have been and allow them to create a story from it. I liked this and said I’d like to use the idea. He said that if its wet you can put plants in notches in the board or tie things onto a stick. This is inspired by Australian aboriginal tradition.
Edited on 2006-05-15 02:50:18 by LottieChild
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Recap - Walk with Rich Sylvester
I went for a walk with Rich Sylvester yesterday. W met a North Greenwich tube and bought tea at the snack stand. He then led me to a grass hill quite near the water. I told him I’m compiling a guided tour and booklet combining people’s stories, thoughts and ways of seeing the local area. That I wanted to talk with him, find shared interests and see the places hear the things he’s really excited about. He explained the idea of story sticks, I’m not sure if that’s what he called them. Basically he get a piece of card and sticks double sided sticky tape to it, on a walk with children he asks them to collect things along the way to stick on the card and that later remind them of where they have been and allow them to create a story from it. I liked this and said I’d like to use the idea. He said that if its wet you can put plants in notches in the board or tie things onto a stick. This is inspired by Australian aboriginal tradition.
He picked a tiny bright pink vetch flower and said if I put this on the board and later I could remember that lottie and I sat in the hill, listening to the sound of the birds gradually people coming back from work walked to their cars until in the end there were no more cars left. We identified the song of a blackbird impersonating a lorry reversing. I liked this as an indication of the way manmade and natural urban and rural can’t be prized apart but are intricately fused together in perpetual process. It was a great place to sit we had the view of a large mound of earth covered with grass and weeds, and on our left the Millennium Motel that is now legendary in my mind a real gem, with people living in vehicles. I asked rich if he felt that before an area is developed there was more scope for autonomous activity, the perhaps the rules are relaxed a bit before the transformation. We came back to that later he told me that there are three? Security firms working in the area, which is funny coz there seems little to police. I do remember two security guards gleefully telling me off for locking my bike to the wrong thing, a few weeks ago. There was a story connected to that which I don’t think we got very far with. Rich suggested we walk down to the water’s edge. He mentioned that it was low tide. By the water there was a line of flotsam and jetsam we clambered over a stack of thin branches that had been nuzzled up the beech by the tide. He said they make a fire together on the beach at the end of his story telling/workshops. He showed me some of the objects he has found on the beach including clay pipe fragments and a coconut. I’d seen one by the water further down in a previous recce We talked about a possible ‘source of the coconuts’ he thought maybe it was Southall as an Indian tradition is to place a coconut in the river in honour of someone we can’t be with either because they are far away or they’ve died. Then a moment of silence between us, at the water’s edge in the cooling air surrounded by displaced undergrowth, plants and objects in a chaos produced by the constantly shifting water. We walked on crunchy debris Rich mentioned that the people on his walks may be wearing heels. I was wearing delicate leather slippers in gold covered in sequins. This lead us to talk of the freedom to wander as a privilege and a quote from Rebecca Solnit’s Book Wanderlust came to mind. “There are three prerequisites to taking a walk- that is, to going out into the world to walk for pleasure. One must have free time, a place to go, and a body unhindered by illness or social restraints”
Rich reflected on his wanderings as a privilege, he said he out in the evening, can go anywhere without worry. But by no means everyone can go for a walk. I would change what Solnit says slightly, it seems to me that we need a body ‘not too hindered’ by illness or social restraint. To varying degrees, we all live with illness and constraint. To muster the will to begin a walk may go some way to working with and moving beyond the limits these states impose on us. Perhaps a good way to engage with a place is as you are. Rather than needing special skills or special clothing: wearing heels, having a hangover or a child with a tummy ache require that you find your own ways to move, be in a locality, to meet your own challenges and victories.
We then decided to walk along central park in order to critique the management of green spaces this came up because Rich offered me some young oak trees for me to plant guerrilla gardening style. I plan to plant vegetables in the flowerbeds around here I wanted to be sure there was enough water and untended ground to make this viable. Our route to the park was guided by what Rich called ‘desire line’. Places where people have walked across beds planted with Ivy to reveal the vital knowledge that eluded planners when designing the area that is the most direct routes to and from the station.
I told Rich about the walk I took with children aged 6 and 7 from millennium primary school looking for trees to climb and the ideal tree for a tree house. The kids had appraised the suitability of trees around their school, identifying the building of a platform as a good method and a willow tree between their school and the ecology park as a possible host. Most of the newly planted trees are too small and young to sustain a structure and Rich suggested another possibility, of collecting large lengths of driftwood and lashing them between small trees to create a platform. He mentioned using a collar under the ropes to protect the bark. We paced the distance between trees and Rich felt sure we’d be able to get the right kind of timber.
Looking at the Ivy beds we saw the irrigation system nestling in it. We both questioned the sense in watering ivy. The areas of grass in central park were wonderfully lush and quite diverse. Evidence of strimming the edges may have been the sign of less than sensitive care of the plant life. Any covert vegetables wouldn’t stand a chance against decapitation here. The drinking water fountain isn’t functioning properly; pressing back the smooth metal structure creates a gentle dribble. The desire for intimacy with aluminium that one would need to suck a few drops of moisture would require a sexual fetish for brushed metal. Issues of water use, soil and plant life converge here, more on that later.
We then went to the location of the old allotments, a breathtakingly lush biodiverse acre, surrounded by roads and concrete. Again we followed in the footsteps of local experts, the foxes traversing of the place had made visible paths in the long grass. The evening light was waning and we could make out the song of a lark merging with the traffic’s roar.
Deletions:
Friday 28th April
Precepts – pleasure, sustainability, feral plant and animal life, what people think, know and want to do.
Today I need to introduce myself and get the kids interested in what I’m doing and willing to share their ideas and experiences with me.
I need to scope out the materials and the terrain
Water
Recycling
Land
Week 1
<sum> Intro to the whole project
The project I’m working on is guided tour and guide-book that they will help me to create. The tour will be for a variety of people to show them things they might not have seen, tell them things they might not know, suggest some new ideas about the local area and remind them about having fun.
Intro
What I’m doing here
What can they tell me about this area:
What is your daily routine
Where do you play?
What do you play?
Are there any plants growing in this area?
Are there any Open green space?
What do you do for fun?
Record the answers on MD
Find the bin and ask them where waste goes
Talk about landfill and the problems with it, especially the effect of throwing away vegetable matter. “Tighter regulation and lack of space is leaving officials with the mounting headache of how to deal with the UK's waste problem. According to figures, the country produces more than 400m tonnes of refuse a year - enough to fill the Albert Hall twice every hour. Each year the UK alone landfills 100 million tonnes of waste and one tonne of biodegradable waste produces between 200m3 and 400m3 of landfill gas which contains typically 50% Methane CH4 with most of the remainder being Carbon Dioxide CO2.”
Show them my compost
Show them some finished compost.
Draw diagram of how it works on the board
Get ready for a walk ask them where they want to take me and what they want to show me, do they have any special places?
Before the walk we will do a warm up to get our bodies and minds ready. The warm up will involve;
<sum> Stretching and jumping.
<sum> Making figures of eight with our arms to get our brains working intelligently and creatively.
<sum> Asking challenging questions such as what are you good at? (in pairs, then feed back)
<sum> Playing eye spy to make us super observant.
We go on a walk to look for;
<sum> Stories (interesting things that have happened there)
<sum> Litter
<sum> Weeds
<sum> Creative movement
<sum> feral animals (or evidence of feral animals)
<sum> wildlife
<sum> climbable trees
<sum> Sainsbury’s
<sum> Manhole covers
Make maps?
I will ask them if they have any memories or stories or thoughts about the place we go. And I’ll make a note of them on my map and record their replies.
Edited on 2006-05-15 02:38:01 by LottieChild
Additions:
TimeSpentResearchingWithKids
Oldest known version of this page was edited on 2006-04-21 03:39:25 by LottieChild []
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Friday 28th April Precepts – pleasure, sustainability, feral plant and animal life, what people think, know and want to do.
Today I need to introduce myself and get the kids interested in what I’m doing and willing to share their ideas and experiences with me.
I need to scope out the materials and the terrain
Water
Recycling
Land
Week 1
<sum> Intro to the whole project
The project I’m working on is guided tour and guide-book that they will help me to create. The tour will be for a variety of people to show them things they might not have seen, tell them things they might not know, suggest some new ideas about the local area and remind them about having fun.
Intro
What I’m doing here
What can they tell me about this area:
What is your daily routine
Where do you play?
What do you play?
Are there any plants growing in this area?
Are there any Open green space?
What do you do for fun?
Record the answers on MD
Find the bin and ask them where waste goes
Talk about landfill and the problems with it, especially the effect of throwing away vegetable matter. “Tighter regulation and lack of space is leaving officials with the mounting headache of how to deal with the UK's waste problem. According to figures, the country produces more than 400m tonnes of refuse a year - enough to fill the Albert Hall twice every hour. Each year the UK alone landfills 100 million tonnes of waste and one tonne of biodegradable waste produces between 200m3 and 400m3 of landfill gas which contains typically 50% Methane CH4 with most of the remainder being Carbon Dioxide CO2.”
Show them my compost
Show them some finished compost.
Draw diagram of how it works on the board
Get ready for a walk ask them where they want to take me and what they want to show me, do they have any special places?
Before the walk we will do a warm up to get our bodies and minds ready. The warm up will involve;
<sum> Stretching and jumping.
<sum> Making figures of eight with our arms to get our brains working intelligently and creatively.
<sum> Asking challenging questions such as what are you good at? (in pairs, then feed back)
<sum> Playing eye spy to make us super observant.
We go on a walk to look for;
<sum> Stories (interesting things that have happened there)
<sum> Litter
<sum> Weeds
<sum> Creative movement
<sum> feral animals (or evidence of feral animals)
<sum> wildlife
<sum> climbable trees
<sum> Sainsbury’s
<sum> Manhole covers
Make maps?
I will ask them if they have any memories or stories or thoughts about the place we go. And I’ll make a note of them on my map and record their replies.