Poetry, digital printing, waterless lithography & a caramel wafer! Connecting well being & nature, these wonderful contributions are from Christine Kingsley and Susan P Mains for the River Deep Mountain High exhibition. Inspired by flora, fauna, nature notes & the Tayside coast.
Reticulating Rivers and Forest Forages: Personal Geographies of a Walk in the Woods by Christine Kingsley and Susan P Mains
Collage of digital print and waterless lithography
“Research findings from our Walk in the Woods project on wellbeing are combined with our responses to archive materials related to the Tayside coast to create an aquatic themed map using waterless lithography (shown on the wall and in the case). We engage with the Scottish Flora scrapbook made by D.R. Robertson and excerpts from Waterson’s Nature Notes. The poetry of the curated materials and Susan’s poetic response are included in the text alongside the research outputs represented by our infographics. The Rules for Rainfall Observers and the McLean Hydrometric Data Collection highlight the human-physical connections when working outdoors. Thanks to Mark Hunter and Pete Yearworth in Printmaking.”
As a response to the new circumstances we all find ourselves in, Susan began to reflect on the exhibition on a walk with her children, inspiring a haiku and a drawing to add to the piece. You can hear her reflections in the audio file below.
Transcription:
“Visiting Tentsmuir Forest recently, with my children and dogs, made me reflect on how lucky we are to live near such a beautiful landscape. As the children played on the sand dunes and I looked out to the River Tay and the North Sea beyond, it also reinforced the regenerative power of being outdoors. Despite the current challenging circumstances, the relative tranquility (well, apart from the wee ones rolling in the sand), encouraged me to look to the future and embrace a sense of calm and hope that comes with Walking in the Woods. It also inspired a haiku, Tidal Times. Haiku’s can be succinct ways of declaring a sudden–sometimes fleeting-awareness of things we may have previously taken for granted. Like walking, art and poetry give us space to reflect, to express our feelings and hopefully a way to connect with others in these socially distancing times.
Tidal Times
Hopeful horizon
Sand dune views to shifting seas
We partly pause now.”
Christine Kingsley is deputy academic head of the Social Digital group at DJCAD. Research interests lie in co-design activities centred around communication and communication technologies, digital & analogue with special interests in walking, drawing and conversation. Her training in illustration and printmaking has found focus in collaboration with potter Sean Kingsley and their sustainable micro studio, Butter Wynd pottery and, through graphic recording, documenting visual meetings for industry and research strategy.
Susan P Mains is a Lecturer in Human Geography in the School of Social Sciences. Her work examines transnational identities and media representations of mobility, borders, and security in the context of Caribbean migration, creativity in Jamaica and Scotland, and heritage tourism. More recently she has been actively involved in collaborating with artists and curating exhibitions as part of research and public engagement processes examining connections to place.
River Deep Mountain High was an exhibition in the University’s Lamb Gallery to mark the Year of Coast and Water curated by Archive Services. Artists, designers and creative writers were invited to respond to the University’s rich archive, museum and rare book collections on the themes of rivers, seas, coasts and mountains. Original photographs, journals, plans, models and specimens relating to whaling, the River Tay, the natural world and mountaineering inspired jewellery, artwork, sculpture, poetry and much more.