Vorest

Vorest, is a meditation on the changing landscape of an ancient forest, where culture and nature are inescapably linked.  

Forests have long been entwined with myth and folklore. They have enticed and inspired us since ancient times, inspiring stories that have been shared across cultures and centuries in oral and written language. In such stories, the forest has many forms. It can be dark and foreboding, a place that offers shelter or camouflage, and in which the wanderer can find themselves, ultimately, lost. The forest is often spoken of as if it is another realm. It is a place where time and the co-existence of flora and fauna have their own rules, in which humans are a recent intruder.  

Vorest considers the relationship between the narratives of the past and the environment in the present; a shift in perspective from the modern idea of ownership of land, to a more balanced relationship with it. 

The Forest of Dean is an ancient place. A forest of plantation and ancient woodland, of farm land, heathland, quarries and mines. Locally it is known as the Vorest, and its inhabitants, Voresters. The way people have engaged with this landscape over hundreds of years has shaped a unique and complex cultural identity. Conserving it is just as important as looking after the ecology of this area 

Using archive photographs from the local museum, I draw upon the folk and rural traditions that form the foundation of the Forester’s culture and collective memory. They are recontextualised with my own photographs to create a conversation of sorts between the past and the present. In my own exploration of this landscape, I experienced it as tactile and material; a place in which the human role is reduced, but still present. Through Vorest, I endevour to better understand this landscape and our place within it.