Modern Nature Symposium, The Hepworth, Wakefield Friday 26th April 2019 Green Spaces and Gardens
In 2015, The Hepworth launched a garden design competition to link a 19th century mill and a contemporary art gallery together and provide an open public urban space. It had to reflect Barbara Hepworth’s love of landscape and bring sculptures outside so they could be viewed in changing light. It also must provide all round colour.
The design and build of the garden is an estimated cost of £20 million.
The garden should encourage visitors to wander around sculptures, introducing them to art which they may not have considered. It could be a halfway point for people who are unsure of what to expect in an art gallery. I find the activity sheets for children which the Hepworth produce engaging and a way into the art on display, although people need to visit to discover this for themselves. The café may encourage visitors to the garden. The building is a walk away from Wakefield town centre which has many empty shops; the gallery is situated near retail shopping parks. Public space – accessible? Code of behaviour? Opening times? Transport of groups to use the space? Expensive?
Rachael Craddock (Communities Manager, The Hepworth)
The idea is to connect local people with spaces – working with community groups. Values considered include exchange (learning with and from people), co-creation (hand-over), partnership and access. The aim is to help people and communities become healthier and inclusive and give people a sense of place. It would be somewhere for mental and physical wellbeing activities to happen. The Hepworth have worked with people with dementia through movement, music and art involving artists to gather an informed approach to how people could use the space, looking at current factors such as social isolation, frailty, social prescription and referrals. The garden would have self – guided resources for people and be an accessible gateway to the building.
Critical issues in thinking about green spaces and wellbeing – panel discussion Clare Rishbeth (Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield), Jan Orlek (Artist / Activist East Street Arts and School of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Huddersfield), Julia Dobson (Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield)
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| Nicola Talbot 2019 (Twitter) |
Clare produced a park in a bag and asked the audience to think about how people use a park. Do people have different needs at different times in their life? Keywords – materiality, mundane, cultural divergences, aesthetics. Clare had been involved with a refugee project looking at values and experiences of park users. Discussed unpacking familiarity with issues such as people feeling unsafe, an unfamiliar environment, what is allowable or usual behaviour, uncertainty, belonging or not belonging in the landscape / nature. In order to address wellbeing, people need support with mental health. People value trees, flowers and water but sometimes need support to understand how to use the space when it is an unfamiliar environment and making friends or bringing along friends and developing a social network aids people to use the space. Could be in the form of a walking group. Curated sociability. Develop shared meanings. Human to human relationships and shared experiences.
This made me think differently about parks. Having now spoken to one of my Tutors and read John Fiske’s Reading the Beach Essay, I can begin to contextualise some of Clare’s ideas and start questioning the romantic notion of the park being a “nice landscape”. I think in the park people have similar needs to be there but view each other differently as with the sunbathers and families in Fiske’s essay. Parks provides different types of landscape within them and this could probably be mapped out according to the nature / culture debate, tending mostly towards culture. Some parks do have more wild areas within the security of the park and there can be plenty of boundaries between spaces.
Julia suggests that money spent on parks has fallen by 60% in some areas due to council’s austerity measures. There is a mental health crisis in cities linked to the austerity. Biodiversity – decline of 50% of species in the UK since the 1970’s. If there is no money, other issues take priority. Ethical dilemmas. All about how the issues are framed. To change social policy, one needs to be imaginative and make connections to the issue using art and nature. To achieve utopia there must be conviction.
Ruth Levitas – The concept of utopia. May be useful to read/reference?
IWUN http://iwun.uk/ Improving wellbeing through nature. Who is investigating the green space?
Jon Orlek’s project with back to back houses in Leeds suggested that councils had a masterplan which was invisible. He questioned whether social housing was acceptable and who could influence the plans. Architects define and councils are much less eager to define an artist led approach.
Clare questioned how spaces can change, e.g. drinking / skateboarding. How can you manage “antisocial” behaviour? Connectivity with groups / towns. Desire paths – competing uses – people don’t like being told what to do. Compete / multiple / overlap uses. Wellbeing is informal / transgressive behaviour. How does everyone benefit? Prescribing / enabling behaviours within a space. Observe and intervene when necessary.
Who intervenes – authority, funding (or lack of), falls to society? Is it acceptable for people to sit and have a drink in the park if they don’t have a garden and they feel safe here with their friends? Who decides what is acceptable behaviour? Nature v culture debate.
Criticisms of socially engaged art – follow up, look at the space etc. Evaluations are difficult. Directed by outcomes from commissioners – biased. Can evaluate the activity but not the space. Space is not an intervention. Think of it as an infrastructure like a road, clean air. What are the health benefits and how can it be maximised? Work with engagement of nature needs to start with service users.
Case studies: Creating green spaces
Keith Lilley (Director of Estates and Facilities Management, University of Sheffield)
Keith spoke about the University’s master plan for green space. Urban context reflecting nature. Youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16QJ9iwR524 (watch from 3:24secs) Issues such as rerouting buses, creating pedestrian crossings, benches and park like spaces. People’s health improves when they are outside. Uni campus but in the public realm.
How do the public know they can use this space as well as the students?
This presentation enabled me to see Nottingham Trent University’s urban spaces differently than just walking through the area from A to B.
Chris Keady (Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust)
Manages 3 museums – water, industrial and people. Community walks, staff wellbeing, community engagement.
Stephanie Pitts and Sarah Price (Department of Music, University of Sheffield)
Understanding audiences for the contemporary arts. London is different from other cities. White middle-class people are spoken to on the whole. Try to include diverse community groups. Art café’s – people pop in to use the toilets and café, not necessarily see the art. People know how to behave in a café, so it is a bridge to accessing the arts.
Green space is not a destination. Go through it and it changes.
Keith described the green space as a corridor. I can associate with this term – a bridleway runs through the landscape I am studying connecting an SSI to Forestry Commission managed land. This could be the first-time people engage with edgeland landscape. Is it different from the other two? It is managed by Harworth Estates whose aim is to naturalise the area from an old coal mine but it is still being used for some coal activity? Wilderness? How far is it on the scale of nature to culture?
Adrian Moore (Department of Music, University of Sheffield)
Soundscape as an audio document. Acousmatic (electro acoustic piece made for presentation). Lasts 10 minutes. Sounds recorded individually in February 2019 and joined together to create a piece of music
http://coconstructivehumanities.org/recording-the-hepworth/ (insight into the recording)
Casey Strine (Department of History, University of Sheffield)
Gardens then and now
A garden is what a garden does. Comparison between the hanging Garden of Babylon (symbolic- imperial conquest) and the Garden of Eden (representing a place where people lived in harmony with the ecosystem) Fascinating talk. How should the garden at the Hepworth be represented?
Anna Da Silva (RHS Bridgewater)
RHS acquired a garden just outside Manchester. Urban garden. Involving community groups in the restoration. Working with GP’s to launch social prescribing.
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| CoConHum (2019) |
Writing the Environment
Alys Fowler (British horticulturalist, journalist and presenter)
Interesting talk regarding urban nature and how we make space for it. Collected plants in the lunch break to share with the audience. Discussed edible plants, weedkillers e.g. don’t eat if there is evidence of spraying. Herbicidal drift. Weeds are tenacious. They take up minerals and bloom over a long period of time. We need more wildflowers for pollination. Don’t pick flowers to use when they are in flower as they become bitter. Trust your senses – if bitter, don’t eat. Grass pollens are getting smaller due to climate change. Hayfever now affects most of the population. Dorothy Hartley – Food of England.
- Japanese knotweed – Use like asparagus (Japanese - sacred herb for vigour) Rhubarb and lemon flavoured. Pick young. Problem of Japanese knotweed goes away!
- Nettle – Tea (antihistamine) Dried nettle more concentrated. Crush 1-2 teaspoons in cup of water and drink daily. Nettle pesto
- Elderflower – cordial (antiviral)
- Spring green (stick stuff like Velcro) Tonic (liver cleansing and wellbeing) Stick a handful in water for 8024 hours and drink. Like cucumber water.
- Henbane – Smells like fox pee. No good.
- Fat hen – seeds fed to foraging hens. There eggs are higher in omega 3. Tastes like spinach.
- Salad Burnett – Mediaeval salad ingredient like cucumber.
- Dandelion – every part of plant edible. No.1 insect pollinator. Good cleaner, good for digestion. Fry in batter with honey on it. Pollen = protein. Pickle in raw cider vinegar and let the dandelion seep out for 4 weeks. Goes bright yellow. Eat all summer.
- Plantain- narrow leaf and broad leaf – Plantain leaf tea, juiced plantain on cuts. (Antibacterial, anti-microbial, anti-viral, good for stings, sore throats) veins remain connected when cut.
- Watercress roots in water and grows rapidly. Grow your own from a piece of watercress on a bucket of compost and water.
- Apples – good if contaminated because you can peel them. Blackberries, raspberries etc. can’t peel.
Books – a thrifty forager, A modern herbal.
Link between landscape and weeds? Weeds rule. Reminds me of Chris Shaw’s “Weeds of Wallasey” series on display as part of the exhibition of Modern Nature in the Hyman Gallery, The Hepworth.
Dan Eltringham and Vera Fisbian (route 57 Environs: Modern Nature)
Reading of poems / stories exploring our evolving relationship with the natural world and how this shapes individuals and communities.
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