Trip and Talk, Brimham Rocks and the Hepworth

An exciting event from the Hepworth Wakefield will highlight Jacquetta’s writing about landscape in a Yorkshire context.  On 12 November 2011, take a guided tour of the amazing Brimham Rocks, followed by a talk by Jacquetta’s biographer Dr Christine Finn at the Hepworth itself.  The event links with the Hepworth’s current display of the huge and stunning paintings of the Rocks by Clare Woods.

Full details about the day.

 

 

 

Land Revisited – Poets and Photos

I wrote about photographer Fay Godwin recently: her exhibition of photographs at the National Media Museum in Bradford has much in common with the ideas about landscape Jacquetta Hawkes expressed in A Land and in poetry and film.  In today’s Guardian, Margaret Drabble writes about Godwin’s life, links with authors, and her concerns about the ways landscape is harmed and restricted.  The exhibition is up until 27 March so there is still plenty of time to catch up with it!  Entry is free.

Land Revisited

Fay Godwin (1931-2005) photographed and wrote about landscape in a way that reminds me of Jacquetta Hawkes’s work. An exhibition which opened recently at the National Media Museum in Bradford revisits Godwin’s 1985 exhibition and book Land, a series of black and white images of British landscapes.  Curator Colin Harding said that she “was able to capture the differing moods and textures of the British landscape with remarkable sensitivity and without sentimentality”.

Godwin photographed and worked with well-known writers including Ted Hughes and Angela Carter.  She was president of the Ramblers’ Association in the late 1980s, campaigning for greater public access to the British countryside.  Her book Our forbidden land (1990) combines her photography with a detailed and passionate argument against the closure of the countryside.

Further information about the exhibition, which is open till March 2011.

Website about Fay Godwin.  Includes biography, lists of her exhibitions and books, and an essay by Philip Stokes reflecting on her work on the politics of land use.

 

 

Jacquetta at the Festival

Last night, John Brooker (Special Collections Assistant) and I attended the first events in the Ilkley Literature Festival Words, Land and Landscape strand, which is based around Jacquetta Hawkes’ centenary.  Our exhibition seemed to interest visitors and Dr Finn’s talk went extremely well.  The capacity audience asked many key questions and were keen to engage with Jacquetta’s life, works and legacy.  I was thrilled to see at last Jacquetta’s film about Barbara Hepworth: Figures in a Landscape.  My thoughts about the film, and John’s photos of the events, to follow soon.

I am also delighted to hear about an extra event in the Landscape strand. On Sunday 10 October, 3pm, at the Manor House Museum, community archaeologist Gavin Edwards will use “objects from the Bradford Museum Archaeology Collection and references to the regional landscape to illustrate the continuing validity of Jacquetta’s insight”.  Sounds like a fascinating event; I often think of Jacquetta’s writings when walking in the Yorkshire Dales, where the landscape’s “bones” are so clearly visible.

“New stories for old”

Interesting mentions of Jacquetta Hawkes and her “biography of a landmass” A Land in comments on the Dark Mountain Project website.  The commenters reflect on their experience of the Uncivilisation conference, which included a paper by Christine Finn on Jacquetta’s ideas.

“Out of the weald, the secret weald”

The latest online newsletter from the Society of Antiquaries (SALON) includes details of Dr Christine Finn’s 2010 events celebrating Jacquetta Hawkes.  In particular, Jacquetta will be well represented at this year’s Ilkley Literature Festival, including an exhibition  based on the Jacquetta Hawkes Archive, more details nearer the time.

The newsletter also includes Linda Hall on Puck’s Song by Rudyard Kipling:

“a brilliant evocation of landscape archaeology (although it rather falls apart in the last verse!) and should be compulsory reading for all budding archaeologists! But first it should be read aloud to all primary school children to arouse their interest and excitement in this country’s past”.

Jacquetta Hawkes shared the intense feeling for the meaning of landscape shown by Kipling in this poem (one of my own favourites).  I vaguely recall her mentioning the poem somewhere, so will try to track the reference down.