PLANTING
Three animated films. Three Derby gardens.
Our PLANTING programme commissioned artists Simon Hamlyn, Lewis Heriz, and Karen Okpoti, to make short, animated films that explore our relationship to nature – cultivation, community, environment, and place – in response to the work of three Derby ‘gardens’ – Derby Arboretum (Britain’s first public park), Hannah Fields community garden, and Derbyshire Wildlife Trust’s urban Green Corridor project.
PLANTING launched on 13 and 14 September at two events with our Derby partners, Hannah Fields and Derby Arboretum.
You can watch the PLANTING films below, and a recording of the artists in conversation with artist and curator Chiara Dellerba.
Please follow this link to see the films with captions or audio description.
There’s some background to the project, and information about the artists and partners, below.
Essay
In a short essay commissioned for PLANTING. Chiara Dellebra reflects on her Chimera Plantarium project, and how can we rethink our relationship with nature. You can read it here.
Green Lung, Simon Hamlyn, 2024
Green Lung responds to Derby Arboretum, Britain’s first public park, which was commissioned by mill owner Joseph Strutt, and opened in 1840.
Simon’s film makes connections between the nature of the park, and the industrial working lives of those it was intended to benefit.
Animating screen-printed images, he was keen to avoid the waste that’s often part of this process, using acetate sheets which were scanned, cleaned and re-used, paper stencils and water-based inks.
I started to realise I could use natural materials directly, so that involved collecting and gathering plant material and pressing it and then scanning it and using that imagery, which was really exciting.
It got me outside! And had me looking for textures and patterns that were just naturally available, to incorporate into my work.
On Hannah Fields, Lewis Heriz
On Hannah Fields responds to a community garden in Littleover, north of Derby city centre.
Lewis was struck by Hannah Fields’ principle of acceptance – of whoever comes in through the gate: Everyone’s welcome. And you also accept what the garden itself is offering up; you look at it, and you sort of evaluate how it fits in, but you don’t reject it.
Lewis’ film includes celluloid film hand-processed in nettles weeded from Hannah Fields, and phytograms – images made through a chemical reaction between plants and photographic emulsion – made as part of a workshop – and the soundtrack includes voices from members of the Hannah Fields community.
I did some of the animation with just water on ‘magic paper’ (originally used for Chinese calligraphy practice) – you create a dark line but it starts to disappear almost immediately. It’s a gesture towards leaving no trace, and of not contributing to the unnecessary accumulation of stuff in the world.
Green Corridor, Karen Okpoti
Green Corridor responds to Derbyshire Wildlife Trusts’ Green Corridor project, which provides and connect spaces for wildlife in inner city Normanton. As well as increasing biodiversity, the Corridor is somewhere for people to learn, connect with nature and have ownership within their local community.
Karen’s film takes a ‘walk’ through Normanton, along the Corridor, and a conversation with Adam Dosunmu Slater, the Wildlife Trust’s Community Organiser, as her starting point. The idea of the ‘exquisite corpse’ drawing game provides a structure for her ‘eco tale’, using different styles and techniques – drawing, photography, digital animation – for the different places we encounter.
It’s not just a documentary – there’s fiction, and from the start I knew it would have surrealist and fantastical elements. But still rooted in the Green Corridor – as a place, and an idea – making sure there were lots of connections.
When I listened back to what I had recorded, I had so many soundscapes to sift through. There was busy Normanton Road – traffic and more noise pollution more than anything. And then when we went to the park, there was just bird sounds and animal sounds that I didn’t even realise I was recording.
Accelerate Session: PLANTING artists
Recorded on 17 September 2024.
Chiara Dellerba is an artist, facilitator and curator based in the UK. Her work explores critical, social and fictional dimensions of ecology, placemaking and conviviality. She often develops long-term collaborative and interdisciplinary projects that aim to expand notions of place, community and human- more than human relationships. Her Chimera Plantarium project investigates urban spontaneous plants, to map, rethink and redesign public places from the perspective of ‘weeds’.
Background to the PLANTING project
Nature always tells you the truth. (Matt Wynne, from On Hannah Fields)
Whilst PLANTING has supported artists to make new work, it also challenged them with a brief that asked them to consider the work of three organisations that embrace ‘ecopsychology’ – the emotional connection between humans and nature – to reconnect with the earth. The Australian philosopher and environmentalist Glenn Albrecht has said that this positive reintegration into nature will only be possible if both children and adults, who are currently disconnected from nature, recognise the benefits of transitioning out of the Anthropocene era (in which human activity began to have a significant impact on the Earth’s climate and ecosystems) and actively contribute to creating what he calls the Symbiocene – a new period in the Earth’s history where humans symbiotically reintegrate themselves, both psychologically and technologically, into nature and natural systems.
The PLANTING artists collaborated with three green sites and communities local to Derby, and these sites are part of a larger network of green spaces that includes the UK’s largest re-wilding project, the reintroduction of beavers to the county, and a city that hosts other organisations that aspire to create spaces where people can connect with each other while celebrating the heritage of these precious spaces.
Thinking about how animation can be used to inspire and embrace the Symbiocene, Hannah Fields invites us to adopt the Swedish practice of Lagom, the appreciation that the earth gives us ‘just enough’, and that we need not take more than we need. The PLANTING artists embraced this challenge in different ways, from recording the urban sounds interspersed with birdsong, to embedding natural materials in their process. Each has produced work that uncovers the innate beauty of nature that can be found within any urban setting.
We hope that PLANTING can act as a reminder that we not only need to nurture the earth and re-connect with nature in a time of climate crisis, but that we also must nurture and re-connect with arts and culture, to invest in artists. As John Ruskin, the prominent 19th Century art critic said: the art of drawing is of real importance to the human race…because it is the representation of visible things.
Simon Hamlyn
Green Lung, Simon Hamlyn, 2024
Simon graduated from Kingston School of Art with a first class BA Illustration Animation in 2022. His graduation film, Architect’s Cruise, premiered at Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film, and other screenings include: Flatpack Festival, Birmingham; Viborg Animation Festival, Denmark; and Cinanima, Portugal. In 2023, he undertook an Erasmus internship at Animal Tank studio in Ghent, Belgium. Simon lives in Bristol.
Friends of Derby Arboretum
Friends of Derby Arboretum is a diverse group of local people who are passionate about the Arboretum. The Friends organise at least free public events each year, and also facilitate gardening, crafting and other activities and events for local people.
The Arboretum – a botanical tree garden for instruction as well as leisure – was Britain’s urban public park. It was commissioned and donated for the benefit of citizens of Derby in 1840, by businessman, social reformer and philanthropist Joseph Strutt (1765–1844) whose wealth came from the family textile business.
Lewis Heriz
On Hannah Fields, Lewis Heriz, 2024
Lewis graduated with MA in Experimental Animation from the Royal College of Art in 2021. He worked as a graphic designer for 13 years, before starting to make films in 2019. His Instagram animation project Improv (1) was a Vimeo Staff Pick, and screenings of his MA film So Long include Annecy and Aesthetica film festivals. He works as an animator and lecturer, and is creative director of Fully Human, a creative research project of the PSHE Association developing a collaborative workshop to explore young peoples’ thoughts and feelings around Artificial Intelligence. Lewis lives in Ludlow.
Hannah Fields
Hannah Fields began in 2018, taking a lease from the council on a two acre green site that had been unoccupied and unmanaged for over 25 years, left overgrown with brambles and used for fly tipping. It is now a thriving community garden, with a mission focused on reducing social isolation whilst nurturing and protecting our natural environment for the benefit of all, with an organic market garden, café and shop, and a range of nature and wellbeing activities, including a Forest School.
Karen Okpoti
Green Corridor, Karen Okpoti, 2024
Karen graduated with an MA (with distinction) in Computational Arts from Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2021. She works as a freelance illustrator and animator. She creates interactive installations and animated films to engage audiences in various topics. Ghanaian born, Karen’s work is inspired by West African tradition, nature and Western Esoterica. Karen lives in London.
Derbyshire Wildlife Trust
Derbyshire Wildlife Trust supports wildlife and wild spaces, managing 46 nature reserves across the county, and working on over 170 conservation and wellbeing projects, restoring species like Byson and Beavers, habitats and bringing people from all walks of life closer to nature.
A healthy natural environment is the foundation for everything that is of value to people – food, water, shelter, flood prevention, health, happiness and creative inspiration. It’s the source of our prosperity and our wellbeing. We want to inspire people about the natural world so that they value it, understand their relationship with it and take action to protect and restore it.
As part of the nationwide Nextdoor Nature programme, DWT is supporting people and communities on their green projects in Derby, including the creation of a Green Corridor between Normanton and Arboretum Park. Community Organiser, Adam Dosunmu Slater has connected with over 30 organisations in the city and is supporting them on their journeys to create a greener and wilder inner city of Derby.
