enwi'r gwyllt = naming the wild
separate blog here
What happens when we name things?
How
does it change our experience of those “things”? We see, we learn the
name [either by reading or having someone tell us], we write the name
and we are back into the visual – a code to translate back into the
aural.
How
can naming the plants change our experience of a place? How do names of
plants affect how we see each different sort of plant? How much can
names tell us about plants and their use and what people in the past
thought of them?
Part
of the life of the plant is made through photosynthesis, some plants
are phototoxic or have particular photonastic attributes. Most of the
inhabitants [plants, fungi, animals] of this planet are photosensitive; I
am particularly so. This inspires me to use light as a basic recording
material: camera-less photographic techniques such as cyanotypes and
lumen prints.
Collecting plant names in English and the Brythonic languages is an ongoing project.
I lived close to Roath Park in the mid-1980s and the late 1990s.
After the event:
Can you write lists in ink pen in the rain? yes. can you make cyanotypes in the rain? yes
cyantotypes made in collaboration with Paul Hetherington
