Reflections on Black Nature in Residence 2
un/endings'ish & happenings
Feeling happysad as the Black Nature in Residence 2 project, led by identity on tyne, comes to an un/ending’ish on October 22nd, where five artists will be showcasing some of their creations at an online showcase (see below for booking).
A landmark project, Black Nature in Residence 2 created residencies for five global majority creatives to spend time in one of the five Northern National parks over the course of a year. To BE, create and respond.
The five creatives are Jola Olafimihan, Nadia Emam, Wajid Hussain, Testament, and myself. From building faraday cages, meditation, poetry, film-making, archival explorations and interviews of hidden histories, podcasts, natural ink-making and dying, paper-making, polaroid photography, massive collaborative journal-making, clay-bird making, zine making, blog-posts, wild workshops and open studios – as a collective of artists we have created a wild and unruly body of work, roamed far and wide across moors, waters, mountains, cliff-tops with our tools and our note-books and our technologies and our ideas and our theories and our big wild hearts. Expressing the nature1 within and around, flowing from and through our individual and collective creative interests.
I am massively grateful to Dr Sheree Mack who was pivotal in visioning, creating and gaining funding for these residencies. They have led the project, given us permission to create in our ways, and held the space for our creativity to flow. They’ve been a supporter, a listener and a shield when some of us, in the course of our encounters or communications with ‘official’ folks, have encountered micro-aggressions, been misunderstood, been cancelled, been patronised2, being told ‘what to do’ and ‘how to do it’ and what we are allowed to call ourselves or not (global majority? people of colour? Black people? Brown people? diverse people?…!!!) and and and.
I wasn’t surprised at the above behaviours. Not being surprised doesn’t make anything easier or less painful. It was disappointing. At how little some/many folks and organisations haven’t moved on or done the deep work around racism/whiteness or even the intention to try (or maybe there have been intentions and movement that are not yet/ever embodied or have not been translated into anti-racist/anti-colonial practices), whilst promoting the buzz words of equity and diversion and inclusivity, simultaneously gate-keeping experiences, gatekeeping us? Managing how to present ‘us’. As a generally unmanageable being, I felt impervious to this approach.
On creativity and ungovernability
Creativity and ungovernability have been at the forefront of my mind throughout this residency, as urgent technologies to help dislodge3 and displace empire, little bit by little bit. Colonialism, racial capitalism, all capitalism, Zionism, the far right (and and and…) have been genociding people, cultures and knowledges this past year in a way many of us have not witnessed in our lifetimes (and this has been happening for centuries), further destabilising the climate. Destabilising all of us. I recommended the book, The Land in Our Bones by Layla K Feghali, which amongst many beautiful things highlights the global importance of the Mediterranean basin to climate stability – the very area being bombed to dust as I write. And did you hear about the ice-cap that fell into the sea due to climate-warming and made the earth vibrate for 9 days in September 2023?
My residency was based in a designated/bordered area named Peak District. Yet it was impossible for me to creatively contain myself within these boundaries. And foolish to do so, to attempt to reduce myself to a singular experience or landscape. Like gritstone, I’m a being made of multiple layers, living in a body of multiple worlds, geographies, philosophies and inheritances. Instead I allowed the gritstone to ground me, turned my antennae towards the sky and out-there and listened for signs and signals, for what knowledges and words wanted to come through me.
I waited. And listened. Eventually, one line, ‘I know my bones are as old as you…’ came through. Other words pushed themselves through my fingertips at speed, I didn’t even feel my fingers typing or the words. I just typed. And co-created a poem. A poem grounded on gritstone, that flies in the air, interrogates our unavoidable complicity in all that’s happening in the world, questions who gets to be human and how to be on this earth right now4.
This poem is an unruly, ungovernable transmission. To be felt. Not for literary analysis or intellect. A bone-poem that I’ve written into a big handmade journal in handmade black-bone ink. A poem that I’ll be sharing at the online showcase next Wednesday.
Maybe see you there?
More journey notes on the Black Nature in Residence blog:
Happenings
Black Nature in Residence Showcase: Tuesday 22nd October 6pm - 8pm online. Book your free ticket.
The five creatives in residence will be talking about their time within their respective parks, what they explored, what they enjoyed and created as well as the challenges they faced and connections made. The practice of going slow and being with/in nature was explored as well as engaging with the local communities on the creatives' own terms.
Black Nature in Residence Zine: with fresh-wild writings by global majority writers. Download your free copy here.
Darkling: launch of Dr Sheree Mack’s new poetry collection. Thursday 7th November 6pm - 7.30pm online. Book your free ticket.
Love Notes to Nature Vol.1: a new pamphletine by Dal Kular
Delighted to finally make this pamphletine (a pamphlet-zine) featuring my essay, Love Notes to Nature. In true hand-made low-fi zine-stylie this beautiful handbound booklet, made with recycled paper, features my original words, troublings and photos. A second release is forthcoming at the beginning of December. If you’d like to pre-order a copy please email me at hello@dalkular.com.
I would go to this if it was in Sheffield! 👇🏽 But it’s in Dundee. Booking here.
Gratitude & Thank you: this residency was/is a collaboration of beings (seen and unseen), imagineering and creations.
Ancestors and plantcestors. The landscape called Peak District. The elements, bones and plants of the inks and papers I made/created upon. Sheree Mack and my fellow artists. Carole Shearman. Ishah Jawaid. Foluke Taylor. Kisha, Yvonne, Cheer, Alaina, Ishah, Jacqui, Mamie. Emmie and Frit from Open House, Hathersage. Moorland Discovery Centre (National Trust/Peak District National Park). All of the writers and creatives who I’ve read over the years whose knowledges seep into this work…
I’m currently reckoning with the word nature and all things nature as we’ve come to use this word in the world we currently live in, examining the word from different perspectives. Still feeling through this. In many indigenous cultures there is no separate word for nature as we are all one and the same. We are simply ourselves in all that IS on this rare and wonderful planet.
For example: ‘I’m not sure if you’ve ever visited the national park yet…’ – read my work please, I’ve been visiting this national park way longer than you’ve been alive.
The idea of multiple, repeated, small dislodgments of empire, taking place all over the world, was a theory that came to me via *therapist and writer Foluke Taylor. My eldersisterkin, artist Carole Shearman also shared her idea that all of us creatives, healers and troublers are like little points of light, doing our work quietly/loudly all over the globe. A constellation of dazzling dislodgements of empire.
How to be/live on this earth right now is a daily question and a daily practice.