Landscape, poetry

Yew

Yew Trees

Taxus Baccata

Silhouettes ruling over their kin – Voluminous shadows breaking through the mist, Like abandoned ships cruising a woody sea. In isolation, defining their orbit – Interstellar black holes, consuming light, From a bleached-out sky.

Near immortality lends to the exit door of a church, A spirit more real than any Christian myth. The chapel is orientated around it, Deferring to a power and status as witness, To the folly of civilizations over five millennia.

The connection with eternal life doesn’t end there – Twisted, contorted boughs suggest internal pain, Imprint memento mori of undead beings – Hallucinations of Hydra, Gorgon and Frankenstein, Course through sticky sap like blood, Reddening the bark in winter.

For hundreds of years these knotted fibres defended this Isle, Bending over archers’ backs, straining against sinew, As volley after volley were released at the enemy, Whomever they were, whatever century, For these conflicts are like the gentle breath of summer, Through poisoned, pointed needles.

 Images and text © DJNorwood (in isolation) May 2020

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Environment, Inspiration, Landscape, Stories

Equilibrium (Ecocide)

5 minute read.

Pictures in honour of the extinction rebels.

The following is an extract from influential human geographer Yi-Fu Tuan referencing mythology and environmentalism.

‘In the Chinese cosmological order, things that belong to the same class affect each other. The process, however, is not one of mechanical causation but rather one of “resonance.” For example, the categories east, wood, green, wind and spring are associated with each other. Change one phenomenon – green, say – and all the others will be affected in a process like a multiple echo.

Castle Wood-003

‘So the emperor has to wear the colour green in the spring; if he does not the seasonal regularity may be upset. The idea here stresses how human behaviour can influence nature, but the converse is also believed to occur. Nature affects man: for example, “when the yin force in nature is on the ascendancy, the yin in man rises also, and passive, negative, and destructive behaviour can be expected.”

Castle Wood-004

‘Environmental influence is clearly recognised in the cosmological order of the Saulteaux Indians. Thus the winds are not the only powers in nature that have to be classified and located in space, they are also active forces in conflict over the middle ground where man lives.

Castle Wood-001

‘North wind declares that he intends to show no mercy to humans; South Wind, in contrast, intends to treat humans well. The fact that North Wind cannot defeat South Wind in battle means that summer will always return.’

Mythical Space and Place, Yi-Fu Tuan

Pictures made in woods north of Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire threatened with destruction by the HS2 Project.

All images ©djnorwood 2015

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Inspiration, Photojournalism

The Critic

Below is a review I wrote as a response to an exhibition at Host Gallery in 2012, and also forms part of my submission to The Critic on Ideas Tap – this time with images. I’ve posted about this project before, but I do find it an inspiring, well conceived and above all brilliantly executed piece.

 

In Abkhazia, a forgotten corner of Russia’s vast landmass, emptiness and decay are everywhere. Two-thirds of the population of Sochi a resort town on the Black Sea have been driven over the border to Georgia. Landscapes are battered, pock marked and strewn with abandoned buildings. Empty interiors are as welcoming as mausoleums and cracks are crudely filled with mortar – but there are no attempts to hide the scars. People are unsmiling and melancholic behind their resolute faces. In this current exhibition of the work of photographer Rob Hornstra, we see the hidden cost of recent Russian history etched into every image.

The Mandarin Republic

Pictures representing deceased war veterans evidence the cost of independence to this fragmented state. Family portraits are tacked onto floral walls, or occupy their own reverential space in vernacular wooden frames as formal reminders of their sacrifice. By including these images, Hornstra has handed the role of narrator back to the Abkhazian people. One can only applaud this decision as it connects the viewer on a deeply personal level to the deceased, and their relations who covet their chemical imprint.

Photo of a deceased husband in a refugee centre on Shamgona island. Many Georgian women who were forced to flee Abkhazia lost their husbands.

Photo of a deceased husband in a refugee centre on Shamgona island. Many Georgian women who were forced to flee Abkhazia lost their husbands.

Such intimate pictures contrast starkly with more formal portraits of bureaucrats, slotted between pine desks and pine-paneled walls. They seem imprisoned like marionettes in their wooden worlds. Behind one desk bound official a painting of a sinking ship lurks like a premonition. Behind another a tiger’s head emerges. Danger, it seems, is never far away in the Caucuses.

Sukhumi, Abkhazia

Post Office Administrator Suzanna Kaldzhan (35). ‘You can’t stick Abkahzian stamps on your card abroad

This exhibition is a poignant and sensitive portrayal of a largely unrepresented community. Aptly, Hornstra’s sympathetic, nuanced approach – re-enforced by the looming presence of the 2014 Winter Olympics – allows the complexities of the subject to emerge, justifying this long form style of photojournalism and the project’s beguiling array of printed and digital media.

All images ©Rob Hornstra/Institute

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