"To you all, wherever you live: you are right to be worried.
But don’t give up hope. We can work together to turn the tide"
- Lisbet Rausing
‘Captivating, beautiful and thought provoking’
FERAL is a cross-artform project by Daisy Black and Gossamer Thread Circus. The project, combining circus performance, short film, original prose and fine art, explores a reconnection with the land, drawing on folklore and ecology around each pivotal moment of the year that has anchored us to the earth throughout history, and the process of rewilding and seasonal ecology. Each film and print was created and released at the turning point of the year, from the Spring Equinox to the Winter Solstice, filmed at Wild Ken Hill, a large-scale rewilding project in West Norfolk, and donations from the project were used to plant trees to link two ancient forests at Make It Wild, a rewilding estate in Yorkshire.
FERAL is a cross-artform project by Daisy Black and Gossamer Thread Circus. The project, combining circus performance, short film, original prose and fine art, explores a reconnection with the land, drawing on folklore and ecology around each pivotal moment of the year that has anchored us to the earth throughout history, and the process of rewilding and seasonal ecology. Each film and print was created and released at the turning point of the year, from the Spring Equinox to the Winter Solstice, filmed at Wild Ken Hill, a large-scale rewilding project in West Norfolk, and donations from the project were used to plant trees to link two ancient forests at Make It Wild, a rewilding estate in Yorkshire.
Daisy Black says: "I felt that during the pandemic a space opened up, wider than before, where real change might take root, and I wanted to create work that spoke to this change.
Together, we need to take urgent action against climate change, and I believe we need knowledge and courage in equal measure. Below are some links to some videos that have helped me understand the issue - I hope that they might help you too - and here is a link to nine things you can do right now to help take action against the climate crisis.
The People vs. Climate Change
The Uninhabitable World
Breaking Boundaries: the Science of our Planet
The writer Mary Oliver said that attention is the beginning of devotion, and in making FERAL, I wanted to chronicle a slowing down and a noticing of each shift, each turning point, to be in tune with what is happening within and without, and how these are connected. I wanted to feel galvanised, not powerless, and to bring together the different strands of my work to explore how our wellbeing and the wellbeing of the earth are completely linked, are one and the same, and how we might begin to heal both. I wanted to explore how art might be a carrier of urgent messages, might allow to us to form new narratives that help us to find a way through the challenges we are facing."
If you are local to Norfolk, here are some local organisations and campaigns to check out:
Norwich Farmshare - "an eco-award winning
not-for-profit cooperative, modelling sustainable urban food supply in Norwich. We aim to reconnect people with nature, share good food, and learn together"
Stop the Wensum Link - "Norfolk County Council wants to build a 3.9 mile "Norwich Western Link" across the ecologically rich Wensum Valley at a cost of at least £251m. We are ecologists, scientists, lawyers, academics and many others who are against this road."
XR Norwich
“Language & imagination, far from alienating us from nature, are our most powerful & natural tools for re-engaging with it. Culture isn’t the opposite of nature, it’s the interface between us and the non-human world, our species’ semi-permeable membrane. Our imaginative affinities with the natural world are a crucial ecological bond, as essential to us as our material needs for air and water and photosynthesising plants.” -- Richard Mabey
F E R A L Live
From award winning circus company Gossamer Thread Circus comes FERAL: a 40 minute site responsive circus and theatre show featuring cloud-swing, straps, aerial hoop, ensemble movement, narrated prose-poetry and a bespoke soundscape. The show draws on our connection with the land, natural cycles, folklore and ritual, spinning new stories that speak to a possible future of hope, connection and community. After three years of research and consulting with climate communicators, we identified that a crucial role of cultural organisations is to provide new stories of hope that highlight the possibility for a better future, convey information about our true situation regarding climate change, and present the facts in a way that engages & galvanises anyone no matter their situation to take action within their community. We are also offering responsive workshops and panel discussions around climate change.
Watch the trailer for ‘F E R A L Live’ below.
Watch the trailer for ‘F E R A L Live’ below.
SEED PAPER LEAVES!
If you have arrived here via our seed paper leaves, hello! Please follow the instructions below to germinate your leaf to create a bed of wildflowers in your garden
If you have arrived here via our seed paper leaves, hello! Please follow the instructions below to germinate your leaf to create a bed of wildflowers in your garden
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1. Soak the seeded paper in water for at least twelve hours, to swell the seeds and aid germination.
2. Get yourself a sowing tray or a used yogurt pot and fill with good quality compost – Peat-Free is the important bit 3. Cover with a thin layer of soil and keep moist by spraying daily until seedlings are established. 4. Place the pot somewhere warm and light to help germinate ideally on the windowsill or greenhouse. Germination time is approximately 5 - 8 days. If planting outdoors it is best to sow in late spring or early summer, to avoid frosts. |
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COMPLETE A FEEDBACK FORM if you have seen the films or performances! This helps us develop the project and apply for funding FERAL is supported by Arts Council England, Out There Arts UK, Ockham's Razor, Sanctuary on the Faultlines, Norfolk County Council, Wild Ken Hill and is part of SEASON FOR CHANGE a nationwide programme of artistic and cultural events that celebrate the environment and inspire urgent climate action and CULTURE DECLARES EMERGENCY Humans are creatures of habit, and we have seen how ready societies have been to go back to business as usual as soon as the pandemic has given signs of easing off. But the recurrent peaks and the recalcitrance of this crisis are making it clear that the way we live and work needs to change permanently and substantially. Large-scale restoration activities are beginning to make landscapes bloom across Europe and elsewhere, bringing joy, hope and solace to millions of people. Innovative environmentalists are proving that even heavily degraded natural systems can recover, and that rewilding works. To you all, wherever you live: you are right to be worried. But don’t give up hope. We can work together to turn the tide -- Lisbet Rausing Watch the films
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If you are interested in screening FERAL at your event please contact Daisy at [email protected]
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DONATE
If you are are waged/financially supported and have watched the film/s, we would appreciate a donation. 50% will support this project.
The other 50% will be split between:
- Planting a wood of native deciduous trees re-connecting two ancient woodlands at Make it Wild rewilding estate in North Yorkshire - each tree costs £15.
- A donation to Dancer's Forest, a new initiative by dancer Adam Benjamin with the aim of creating tracts of community-owned rewilded land throughout the UK that also function as cultural spaces providing a "meaningful way of repairing and preserving the land we live on, by re-establishing an environmentally responsible connection between dance, the land and the air we breathe."
TAKE ACTION
- Nine things you can do about climate change
- Support the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill by signing the petition and writing to your MP.
- Pledge with Wild East to rewild a portion of your own garden
- Reduce meat & dairy intake - resources on how and why here and here
- Boycott fast fashion
- Replace household products with eco-friendly options
FURTHER READING
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/02/with-shared-knowledge-we-could-build-a-new-world-qa-with-lisbet-rausing
https://www.ted.com/speakers/tim_flannery
https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk
Books
Wilding by Isabella Tree
English Pastoral: An Inheritance by James Rebanks
Feral by George Monbiot
The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes
Losing Eden by Lucy Jones
Nature Cure by Richard Mabey
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
Films
Kiss the Ground
Cowspiracy
What the Health
Fantastic Fungi
- Nine things you can do about climate change
- Support the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill by signing the petition and writing to your MP.
- Pledge with Wild East to rewild a portion of your own garden
- Reduce meat & dairy intake - resources on how and why here and here
- Boycott fast fashion
- Replace household products with eco-friendly options
FURTHER READING
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/02/with-shared-knowledge-we-could-build-a-new-world-qa-with-lisbet-rausing
https://www.ted.com/speakers/tim_flannery
https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk
Books
Wilding by Isabella Tree
English Pastoral: An Inheritance by James Rebanks
Feral by George Monbiot
The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes
Losing Eden by Lucy Jones
Nature Cure by Richard Mabey
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
Films
Kiss the Ground
Cowspiracy
What the Health
Fantastic Fungi
"Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin-flowers. And the frisky ones–inkberry, lamb’s-quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones–rosemary, oregano. Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.
Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
Mary Oliver
Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
Mary Oliver
