At the beginning of last Autumn I was fortunate enough to have a little adventure over the Irish Sea and down to West Cork. This wasn't my first time visiting the area - I'd been the previous summer and fell in love with the place. It was on that first trip over that I came across an Irish Arts organisation called Lay of The Land. They were running their first year of a project named 'Tombolo' , the namesake being derived from the spit of land their project was based at, known as Brow Head.

Tombolo is a site responsive arts project, best described in their own words:

"We support emerging artists whose practices focus on the landscape, and where themes of environment, community, heritage and collaboration are intrinsic to, and reflected in their work. 

Artistically our aim is to drive artists and the experience of art outwards into the wild landscape of this island [Ireland].

We believe that the interconnection of art, nature and people can be transformative. Our projects create greater accessibility to the arts in rural communities while allowing the visual arts to stand alone as a valuable and necessary cultural activity and experience. "    LOTL. 

Responding directly to landscape, place and environment is something I always strive to do in my own work, so I was instantly drawn to the ethos of Lay of The Land. So much so that the following year I decided to get in touch with the project founders, Kari and Hazel, to ask if I could get involved somehow. They welcomed me over without hesitation and a few months later I was back in Ireland to lend a helping hand to an incredibly talented bunch of artists and crew.

West Cork really is a beautiful and remote part of the world. It is made up of all things Irish and then some: rugged peninsulas, quiet harbour towns and villages, fishing, farming, art, culture, music, storytelling, sailing, festivals, markets, ruined castles, lighthouses, old copper mines, coastal forts, islets, secluded beaches and coves, fresh seafood, open crab sandwiches, Gubbeen cheese, pints of Murphy's, proper pubs, friendly people and a generally slower pace of life - all flanked by the Atlantic Ocean.

Tombolo 2017 commissioned eight artists: Emily Robyn Archer, Kari Cahill, Sophie Gough, Hazel Mc Cague, Rosie O'Reilly, Felix Power, Theo Shields and Anna Wylie to create work in response to the landscape of Brow Head, Mizen Peninsula. Through sculptural installation, intrinsic to the Headland - the artists collaborated together to make their own individual works. 

Establishing a sensibility towards the Irish landscape by responding to it in a creative way is a primary aspect of LOTL’s philosophy. Through sharing the work created from the interconnectivity of artist and landscape, LOTL champion the land of Ireland to a wider audience: its culture, past, people and language.

Language plays a particularly significant role in defining a landscape and historically the Irish language pays close attention to place.  It is a language heavily rooted in the natural environment, described especially well by visual artist, writer and cartographer, Tim Robinson:

“The landscape here [Aran] speaks Irish. The cliffs, rocks, fields and paths are named in words nearly all still alive, descriptive and rich in memories for the islanders themselves”.

Yorkshire born and now Irish based for over 30 years, Robinson has heavily surveyed and studied the Irish landscape and the language that forms it. He demonstrates the power words have in terms of connecting us to a past place. Words not only give landscape a voice, but a beating pulse too and Robinson’s work highlights the importance words have in sustaining a landscape. For every word lost or forgotten a part of that landscape is lost or forgotten with it – defunct and stripped of its integral meaning. However, by reclaiming words we are also given the ability to breathe life back into a landscape and wake up parts of it that have laid dormant for so long.

As you may have surmised, I’m fascinated by words and their etymologies (Long live Countdown’s Susie Dent and Dictionary Corner, amen). To understand the origins of a word, its history and how it changes through time is to further understand the world around us. I have long been influenced by the work of writer and academic Robert Macfarlane, whose book ‘Landmarks’ collects hundreds of place-words from all over Britain and Ireland, across languages and dialects. Macfarlane’s work makes you engage with landscape in a different way, look at it with a fresh perspective and give a greater appreciation to what you’re seeing.

Ireland’s literary landscape is the underpinning of many artists work, who, like Robinson, draw inspiration from the Irish language and its ability to shape a sense of place. During Tombolo I was introduced to the work of artist, Carol Anne Connolly, whose book ‘The Water Glossary’ or ‘An Sanasán Uisce’ is a celebration of the Irish language. She explores the relationship between land and word through her vast research into Ireland’s vocabulary. Her work is very much influenced by Robert Macfarlane’s and it is easy to draw parallels between Landmarks and The Water Glossary. However, the difference being that Connolly’s soul focus is specifically the Irish lexicon. Her collection of words is rich with imagery and bound in nature. The many nuances and illustrative qualities of Ireland’s lexis conjure up a descriptive landscape. From words and phrases to articulate a certain way the rain falls over a body of water, to the numerous wave formations in the ocean, or the many different sounds of the wind. Connolly’s book would often be left out on a table or a chair somewhere in the house we were all staying in for the duration of the project, for people to flick through.  It served as a kind of go to source for some of the artists exhibiting in Tombolo to take inspiration from and keep referring back to.  As an English person I found it interesting to learn new words from the glossary, and from the Tombolo Team, every day. To learn a new word is to learn a new way of seeing, and in doing so it brought me closer to my surroundings and gave me a greater comprehension of the local landscape.

As a homage to Robinson, Macfarlane and Connolly, I have tried to caption all my photographs below using some of the words and phrases I gathered whilst in Ireland. Words are ingrained within landscapes and as such landscapes are ingrained within words. I hope that by pairing my photographs with these words, it will help give each image a sense of place. 

If you haven’t already, please check out the works I have mentioned on the links below:

- Tim Robinson, Folding Landscapes

- Landmarks, Robert Macfarlane (2015)

- The Water Glossary / An Sanasán Uisce,  Carol Anne Connolly (2015)

Working with the LOTL project on Tombolo 2017 was such a rewarding experience, I learnt so much just by being around and collaborating with like-minded people. All the hard work and efforts of the artists and crew throughout September and into October culminated across two weekends, in which people were invited to journey to the Mizen Peninsula to celebrate great art, great landscape, great food, great music and even greater company. Craic Agus Ceol all round. 

Rather than give a full blow by blow account of every little thing I did whilst in West Cork working on Tombolo, I thought I would just share with you the photos I managed to get when I had my camera on me and a roll of film handy! More of a visual journal if you will - enjoy...

For more information and insight into the work of Lay of the Land and their future projects please check out their website http://www.layoftheland.ie/ and help support Tombolo 2018!

Thanks x