Resonance is a living, growing artwork that brings together people, silver birch trees and peat bogs, in our changing landscape. It is a convener, connector and catalyst – for new relationships and for community action and conversations about land use at local, national and global levels.
The planting days are a chance to take part in rooting a 100-year living sculpture: seven circles, each of seven silver birch trees. These circles are intimate (a diameter of 3.5 metres) to allow a person to stand between two trees and touch both; and the trees will grow to touch one another. The circles form a constellation: 7 points on 7 radial lines, spanning out at 51.4-degree intervals from a single sycamore at the centre of the National Park.
The planting events will be curated with poetic prompts for conversations: a chance to get to know more about one special location, and to get your hands in earth while taking part in an arts-led dialogue centring on relationships with land, site-specific land uses, and discussions around soil, peat, trees, farming and land use changes that address the nature and climate crises. And there will be cake! Oh yes, there is always cake!
Dates for the Plantings:
February 25th: Grizedale Forest (with Forestry England)
March 7th: Ullswater Valley (with National Trust and tenant farmers)
March 12th: Ambleside Campus, University of Cumbria
March 19th: Grasmere Valley (with Friends of the Lake District)
Three more dates to be confirmed.