My collaborative piece with the artist David Walker Barker is on display as part of the In the Open exhibition, until 29th September, at the Sheffield Institute of Arts (SIA), Sheffield Hallam, Cantor Building.
It draws on the histories of erasure and resource in the moorland communities of Langsett and Midhope, ten miles north west of Sheffield, which were transformed by the construction of several large reservoirs that drowned farmsteads in the valley. How does one balance affective loss against municipal need? What happens to the social-ecological dynamics of such a contested landscape? Between the interstices of this vast topographical transformation, though, we have also been seeking an older erasure: the “Jossie Cabin”, a shepherd’s hut that stood on Stanny [stony] Common, just south of Langsett Reservoir. Joshua “Jossie” Sanderson, an eighteenth-century shepherd, was last heard of in a 1930s note by Sheffield rambling activist Geoff Ward, in the Clarion Rambler’s Annual that he edited, along with a fuzzy picture of the ruined shelter. My poem, which has emerged from this collaboration, is entitled R/S Res. It interrogates what I see as the poetics of reserve and resource in this complex, layered landscape.
All free, and the whole show is great! Tons of amazing work by: [deep breath]:
Kim Anno, Steve Baker, Christine Baeumler, Iain Biggs, Emma Bolland, Trevor Borg, Eirini Boukla, John Bowers, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Anthony Catania, Clare Charnley, Luce Choules, Thomas A. Clark, Anne-Marie Creamer, Martin Cromie, Barbara Cumbers, Amy Cutler, Clare Davies, Gail Dickerson, Filippa Dobson, Laura Donkers, Dan Eltringham, Adrian Evans, Katy Ewing, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Deborah Gardner, Abigail Goodman, Gordian Projects, Kevin Greenfield, Lucy Sam Haighton, Steven Hitchins, Gillian Hobson, Rachel Hosein Nisbet, Barbara Howey, Diane Howse, Bethan Hughes, Linda Ingham, E. Jackson, Peter Jaeger, Andrew Jeffrey, Natalie Joelle, Jan Johnson, Jane Le Besque, Brian Lewis, Longbarrow Press, Anna Mace, Christine Mackey, Sean Martin, Peter Matthews, Gavin Maughfling, Mary Modeen, Moschatel Press, Sheila Mullen, Camilla Nelson, Ruth O’Callaghan, Martina O’Brien, Evelyn O’Malley, Mark Pajak, Inge Panneels, Kayla Parker, David Power, James Quinn, Anna Robinson, Anna Marie Savage, Beth Savage, Joshua Scammell, Alan Smith, Barry Snaith, Jem Southam, Judith Stewart, Caitlin Stobie, Laura-Gray Street, Harriet Tarlo, Chris Taylor, Andrea Thoma, Rebecca Thomas, Min-Wei Ting, Nick Triplow, Judith Tucker, Veronica Vickery, David Walker Barker, Carole Webster, Wild Pansy Press, Louise K. Wilson, Paul Wilson, Lucie Winterson, Jon Wrigley, Harriette Yarrington.
Dan Eltringham 