The Landowner

On this land, is what makes life worth living:
the return of April, the smell of bread
at dawn, a woman’s opinions on men, the writings of Aeschylus, love’s
beginning, moss on stone, mothers standing on the string of a flute,
and the invaders’ fear of memories.

On this land, is what makes life worth living:
the end of September, a lady leaving
her forties full of apricots, the hour of sun in prison, clouds becoming
a swarm of creatures, the chants of a nation that faces its demise
smiling, and the tyrannies’ fear of songs.

On this land, is what makes life worth living:
on this land is the lady of the land, the mother
of beginnings and endings. She was named Palestine. Still
named Palestine. My lady, I am worthy, because you are my lady,
I am worthy of life.

Mahmoud Darwish

The Landowner

The pandemic was truly horrible for many people. Determined to make the best of it, I took advantage of the restrictions to focus on what I could do rather than fret about what I couldn't. Capitalising on a lack of distractions I carried out new research and experimented freely in the local landscape. Walking along rivers and through the forests and uplands of Southern Scotland I built upon an emerging practice using lens-based media, along with sound and landscape performance. It's been fascinating to delve into subjects as diverse as botanical illustration, plant morphology, folk horror, Border ballads, the politics of forestry, land ownership and agricultural economics. I'm now gathering all my preparatory work under the canopy of a new project which I've named The
Landowner. I started this project by making short films with me and the landscape both in the frame. Each short would deal with an action or series of actions that offered critical reflection on aspects of the complexities of land ownership and land use. I wanted to make sound design an important element of this ongoing series and still have much to do in that field.

I'm particularly interested in photographers who specialise in placing themselves in the frame alongside the new generation of excellent British landscape film-makers. From a study of their work I've been led back to pioneering landscape artists. I'm indebted to all of them and hope one day to be able to position myself somewhere in the middle of this rich mix. Whatever happens I can be sure of two things - there's never any shortage of landscape round here and I'm (usually) able to rely on myself to turn up for the shoot.

As part of the Fallow Land residency I spent a lot of time filming myself in the field (literally). One set of outcomes was exhibited at the time. I've since revisited the footage and re-organised the material which will accumulate with further field trips. I also decided to use music from one of my acoustic guitar albums, Glisk, which you can stream or download on Bandcamp. I spent some time trying different sounds from my archive and decided that these gentle improvisations had something of the 'rural ambient' about them, the kind of thing we find in the BBC's Detectorists series and in numerous feature films that rely heavily on the natural environment and on landscape themes. It's not as simple as that though because there's what the French would call a décalage, a gap, between our conditioning with respect to the music and what the film's syntax is trying to reveal. Again there's more work to be done on the unstable relationship between sound and imagery.

Stills from Access Denied and Granted. Watch on Vimeo

Stills from Measuring and Surveying, The Ways Old and New. Watch on Vimeo

Stills from Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos
(Whoever owns the soil, it is theirs up to Heaven and down to Hell)
Watch on Vimeo