Endangered Plants Index Degree Project

Update 08/06/22: Although this was a very successful proposal to show to Kesgrave Town Council, I have since rewritten it for the viewer in a more engaging and almost ‘prose-style’ way, which is inspired and uses the same formula as Agnes Denes’ proposal for A Forest For New York – A Peace Park For Mind And Soul.

This is my proposal to Kesgrave Town Council for the rewilding project down Cedarwood Walk in Kesgrave:

About the Area:

Kesgrave is largely built on sand, and the areas that we will be rewilding are also such (see map below).

(Map Source: Kesgrave Community Website (2021) Soil Composition. Available at: https://www.kesgrave.org.uk/kcw-history-details/kcw-historic-maps.html (accessed: 7 February 2022))
Therefore, the trees and plants that we select for planting need to reflect this soil type.

Trees:

The packs of trees that I had selected for planting (from the woodland trust website here), are for planting in England, and are generically suitable for the country, and include:

1. Crab Apple
2. Rowan
3. Field Maple

These trees should all fare well on both Cedarwood Walk and Jolly’s Pightle, as they are all reasonably hardy and grow on scrub land. Additionally, the Field Maple is particularly known for fighting and being resistant to pollution, making it ideal for the purpose of planting. Each pack contains 15 saplings, and they require to be planted at a rough distance of 2m apart, although consideration of the final size of the plant must also be made.

Wildflowers and Grasses:

There are a few different types of wildflower and grass seed mixes (From British Wildflower Seeds: website here) that I have found, which we could plant, the first being the Bee Wildflower Seed Mix, which has eighteen species of wildflowers in it (including: Cornflower, Field-forget-me-not, Corn Marigold, Corn Poppy), designed to attract a range of bees and pollinators. There is also a Sandy Soil Meadow Mix, which has seven species of wildflower and seven grass species (Including: Common knapweed, Meadow Buttercup, Crested Dogtstail (grass). Native bulbs (Website here) (including: Bluebells, Daffodils, Snowdrops) would also be good to plant, although these have to be planted in the autumn.

Cedarwood Walk:

(Map Source: Google Maps (2022) Rewilding map: Cedarwood Walk. Available at: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1ZshAvKjW-vkyvubZ7mD-JgokZdraR-8&usp=sharing (Accessed: 31 May 2022))
Cedarwood Walk is a long thin stretch of land, bordering the cycle track running down towards Cedarwood Primary School. It is around 266m long, and at its widest point, around 13m wide (average 10m wide). The green space is broken up into three sections, the “North” (nearest Oak Meadow and the traffic lights), “Central” (in the middle) and “South” (closest Long Strops), and for convenience, I have broken the plan into these three sections.

As it borders housing, tree cover should be dispersed so as not to become an issue for the residents, with trees spaced between 4-10m apart from each other, the space around them filled with wildflower seeds and grasses.

My current plans involve the planting of trees, as these hugely increase the biodiversity of all living organisms in an area, as well as creating shade in a quite open space during the summer. However, I am also aware that planting trees is a larger commitment (in terms of the amount of work and funding needed) than the planting of flowers and the creation of a wildflower meadow. Therefore the creation of a wildflower meadow here is also a possibility, using the same flower packs that I have previously identified.

Planting Time Frame:

Although the trees can be planted all year around, if purchased between March and September, they will need to be planted straight away, as they are in their ideal growing stage, and if not embedded in soil, will start to die. During October to February, the trees won’t be growing so much, and therefore there is more leeway in planting times. The wildflower seeds need to be sewn onto the earth rather than lawn, and are ideally sewn in late summer and early autumn. Therefore, if we could start planting in late summer/early autumn, this would be ideal for both.

Cedarwood Walk North:

(Map Source: Google Maps (2022) Rewilding map: Cedarwood Walk. Available at: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1ZshAvKjW-vkyvubZ7mD-JgokZdraR-8&usp=sharing (Accessed: 31 May 2022))
The above image shows a rough proposal for the placement of trees in this section. Each tree is placed between 4 and 8m apart from each other, which should allow for enough growing space between each tree. There are 11 trees in this placement. Additionally, there are no trees within 4m of each house, to make sure that they don’t encroach on them. However, the placement is fully flexible and can be easily altered to suit the land better. The grasses and wildflowers can then be planted around them, increasing the biodiversity of the area.

Cedarwood Walk Central:

Cedarwood walk central is more or less the same as north, it is one stretch of land, slightly narrower than the other, and more divided by footpaths. There is enough space to plant around eleven trees at a distance of around 4m apart from each other. The plan from Cedarwood Walk North could then be copied in this area.

Cedarwood Walk South:

Cedarwood Walk South is a little different from the previous two locations, due to the shape of it, and the installation in the centre. Therefore, although the area is large, there is only really enough space to plant around five trees at a distance of around 4m apart. The plan for planting wildflowers around the trees could then be implemented here too.

Spaces for People:

Although rewilding focuses on the wildlife aspect, it is also important to remember the importance of people being able to enjoy this site together in order to boost mental health in the community. One way to do this is through getting them involved in the planting of the area, but another would be for the potential installation of a bench of two along the area, creating somewhere where people are able to go and enjoy being in nature, whilst also not being far from their houses. This is something that will need extra planning, and which can come later in the project – I just wanted to bring the idea to your attention now, at this early stage.

Update 08/06/22: The colour of the paint works really really well – the white of the page stands out really clearly against it, and the drawings down get lost in the wall. The green in the colour echoes the green of plants nicely, and compliments the dark green of the washy-tape too.

Update: 19/05/22:

I bought the paint for the space last night. I bought enough that will probably cover one wall of the space two times (so I can apply two coats of paint), which means that it seems likely I will only be able to paint the wall with the illustrations in the ‘grey-green’ colour, whilst the rewilding wall will remain plain white. 

Over the past few weeks, I have been developing some plans on how I want to display my work for degree show. For my drawings this is very simple: I will be hanging them on the wall using dark green washi tape and pins, against a “dried rocket” coloured wall, as displaying my drawings against a slightly coloured background really makes them stand out from the wall (as shown below). I have decided to use the washi tape and pin method of hanging the drawings, as it will create a much more archival effect than having them framed which – as I want to emphasise the index quality of the work – is key. I will also of course have my plant labels, for which I have worked out a better, and much more professional method of production – getting them digitally printed, and then having them press mounted onto thick mounting card, from which we can (hopefully – although I need to go through this with Danielle) cut them out on the laser cutter, to achieve clean cuts.

As I have a large ‘corridor’ space in the studio for the degree show, I am going to devote one wall to my drawings and plant labels, whilst the other wall will be devoted to my rewilding project. I have drawn some plans of how I envisage the space looking for degree show below:

This plan shows how I envisage the wall of drawings and plant labels. As you can see, the composition of the works and labels on the wall, whilst being regimented and orderly, subvert the cube – due to a number of reasons – one of which being the varying sizes of the labels and drawings, which make it more difficult for uniformity to be achieved. Additionally, I hope to arrange the drawings and labels in an order which correlates with the initial research that I conducted, researching the most endangered plants of the world (thus displaying the works in the order in which they appear on the spreadsheet). My planned composition  also still clearly references the works of Susan Hiller, whose works I looked at much earlier in the year, and particularly that of Monument (below) which has additional relevance through it consisting of photographs of labels on park benches – creating a subtle link between my botanical labels and Hiller’s use of labels.

Image Source: Hiller, S. (1980-1) Monument. [Installation] Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hiller-monument-t06902 (accessed: 17 May 2022)

I am not 100% sure on the exact layout of the labels and drawings – whether I want it to be more regimented or have the breaks in pattern as I have drawn – but that is something that I will have to figure out on the wall when I am able to start hanging work.

The next element of the degree show that needs to be planned is the area for my Rewilding project. As I have illustrated below, I envisage this as sort of ‘museum’ set up – where it has been set up as though it was somewhere that someone was working and has recently vacated (as they do in museums). It seems unlikely that I will have actually started any planting of the rewilding project, due to the ideal planting times for the plants, and therefore largely need to be able to represent this side of my degree project through the maps and documents that I already have for the project.

The above drawings show an idea of how I feel I will exhibit the maps and plans, with a desk and chair set up, created an amphitheatre for the proposal of the project. I plan to print the maps and plans that I have off in large scale, to create a dominating wall, which looks as though it is being used to plan and monitor the project. I will additionally have relevant books (such as books on wildflowers) on the desk, and possibly some tools and pencils. Finally, I also plan to have dried cuttings of some of the plants I hope to plant in the rewilding project (such as Rowan) on the wall – which creates a direct link between my illustrations and the rewilding projects: as many of my illustrations are based on dried and pressed herbarium specimens. I plan to visit a few museums in order to see how they set up displays similar to this one (the museum I most want to reference here is Sutton Hoo, as there are certain similarities between my project and the land and exhibitions at Sutton Hoo): exploring how institutions use text and curation in order to clearly tell a story to the visitors/audience.

I am unsure on whether I will use the grey paint on both walls, or just the wall with the illustrations – this is something that I will have to work out as I go along. On one hand, having both walls painted grey creates a definite link between the works – making it explicitly clear to the audience that they are connected. On the other hand, the white might suit the idea and theme that I am trying to convey to the audience better. I may also vie impacted by the cost of the paint.

Wheatfield – A Confrontation is arguably one of the most famous pieces of contemporary Environmental Art, and rightly so. Through this work, Denes created an ever more relevant examination of the  inequality and the human destruction of the planet, by the simple act of planting a field of wheat.

The element that makes the work particularly important and relevant for both past, present and future times and current events, is the location of the field. Denes took over a waste area of land in New York City – right next to the Twin Towers and Wall Street. The situation of a field of wheat – something which is very simple and grounded – in an area of the city which is renowned for wealth, business and inequality is a very powerful statement, highlighting the wastefulness and inequality of society – especially in the business sector.

Although the work itself, in terms of the physicality of the piece, doesn’t relate directly to the works that I am creating (although the act of planting in an urban environment is relevant to my rewilding project), the conceptual motivation is similar – challenging conventional or systemic concepts of what is important for people and the planet and what isn’t and calling people to question the system that they are part of. When writing about the work in 1982, Denes commented that:

“[Wheatfield is a] symbol, a universal concept. It represents food, energy, commerce, world trade, economics. It refers to mismanagement and world hunger. It is an intrusion into the Citadel, a confrontation of High Civilization. Then again, it is also Shangri-La, a small paradise, one’s childhood, a hot summer afternoon in the country, peace. Forgotten values, simple pleasures.” Denes, A. (1982) Public Art Fund

Describing the work as simultaneously an “intrusion” and “Shangri-la” expresses not only the duality of the piece; the way in which it simultaneously celebrates the past of Wall Street (trade throughout history leading to the creation of one of the most lucrative and powerful businesses in the world), in addition to the creation of a haven of [managed] nature within the urban sprawl of New York City. This therefore creates a definite link between Wheatfield and my degree project, through which I am attempting to reframe the public’s perception of plants – particularly in the climate crisis – highlighting their uses and value for humans in a time where we are facing the biggest existential threat of our lifetimes. The exploration of “intrusion” and “Shangri-la” is something that I find particularly interesting in Wheatfield in relation to my own work, as it is the reverse of Wheatfield which has resulted in the creation of the climate crisis – the human intrusion and exploitation of the natural world has left us in a position of extremism and polarisation (much like the world of the stock market), meaning that works such as my Endangered Plant Index and Rewilding Project are needed for the world to (hopefully) sit up and take action.

[Image Source: https://www.publicartfund.org/exhibitions/view/wheatfields-for-manhattan/#&gid=1&pid=7]

Last week we had a crit for the first time in a while, which was really interesting and helpful for me. There was definitely an element of hearing the same thing again (as in previous crits), which I suppose is to be expected, as the style of my drawings hasn’t changed. However, I was slightly disappointed that no one picked up on the larger number of drawings (this time I showed six individual drawings, rather than one or two of the same).

The image above shows the works that I presented for the Crit: the six drawings that I had completed at the time, displayed in a grid format. This wasn’t entirely the display layout that I had envisaged, not only in terms of it being presented in the ‘grid’ format (which feels boring as it is the standard display method, and I had originally planned to subvert the grid), but also because I had planned to have the plant labels which I had designed, but due to technical issues (the IPCC website was unfortunately down on the day that I needed to create the QR codes for the labels and access the information to create the codes for the labels), I was unable to display them. This was sadly picked up in the crit – with people saying that they wanted to know the names of the plants. However there was nothing I could do about that, and it was just an effective reminder to collate the information ahead of time, rather than leaving things to the last minute and being caught short.

The following screenshots are my full notes from the crit, but these are the main points that I will take away from it:

• The mark making is a success, as the detail on it draws you closer to the work.
• The mistakes on the earlier works seem to be something that people connect with and want to see more of, as they show a vulnerability – possibly in the plant itself, reinforcing its identity as endangered. They also keep the drawings feeling more hand-produced rather than scanned or photographed.
• Clarity and accuracy are different from what is possibly expected from scientific illustrations – subverting them, as they aren’t botanical illustrations, but resemble them.
• What is their function?
• The grid encourages the audience to compare and contrast the images. I may want to reassess this.
• The inconsistencies in the drawings, such as the mistakes and the difference in paper types are something that people really connect with, and maybe I should make them a deliberate part of the drawing process?
• Does it matter that they are reproductions of reproductions (drawings of photographs) and not representations of a living subject? What effect does this have on the work?

The fact that people really liked and connected with the inconsistencies and mistakes in the drawings is definitely something I need to explore more, as I myself am unhappy when mistakes and inconsistencies are present. Before the crit, I had decided that I wanted to redraw the Catacol Whitebeam drawing, as it was on a different paper and seemed at complete odds with the rest of the collection. However, when shown it, everyone liked the difference in paper, saying that it made the archival nature of the series more apparent, and that maybe it should be a planned and introduced feature of the work – using a different paper on a few of the drawings to create a false sense of age and multifarious origin (as is the case in real archives). This is definitely something that I need to think about more, and work out how it may or may-not work in my practice. The other ‘thing’ that came up in the crit was the idea of the reproduction of a reproduction and the effect this might have on the meaning of the work. Largely, I feel that to the general public, this won’t matter so much, but I do think it matters in terms of the herbarium specimens, as I am drawing pressed and dried plants. Therefore, they are not being shown off at their living stage, which possibly alters the way they look and their identification. However, there is little I can do about this, as I do not have access to the physical specimens (or living versions), nor the skill in the ‘revival’ of the plants for me to draw them in their original state.

Overall, it was a successful crit. I didn’t necessarily glean as much as I have done previously from other crits, but it was helpful and rewarding none-the-less.

Update: 08/06/22: These are some of my favourite pen and ink drawings that I completed, and I am especially pleased with the clarity that the scan reproduced them with. These drawings also show-case the new skill I found with using the Rotring technical drawing pens, which gave me a much greater level of control and accuracy over the drawing, without compromising the methods I wanted to use in order to create the works in the first place (using the same methods used by Botanical Illustrators).

As I have previously explained the process of drawing, I will not explain it again, but I will instead show images of the completed drawings:

Knock, E. (2022) Gonystylus bancanus [Pen and Ink]

Knock, E. (2022) Dalbergia retusa [Pen and Ink]

Knock, E. (2022) Hopea micrantha [Pen and Ink]

Overall, I am extremely pleased with the drawings that I have created here – I feel that they are not only very representative of the plants themselves, they also maintain strong links with the traditional style of Botanical Illustration (whilst also deviating from it slightly), which is something that I still want to achieve in my work. I also feel that you can see a clear style emerging in the drawings, as I become much more confident with my mark making. I now know which elements I want to be a certain mark making technique (be it pointillism, hatching or lines), and I am confident in placing them in order to create the desired level of shape, structure and shading.

I am also really pleased with how the drawings look on the paper. Using tracedown has allowed me to get a much better composition of the pieces on the paper – they are much more central, and there is a good balance of negative and positive space – much more so than on previous drawings (such as the Catacol Whitebeam). The off-white colour of the paper also creates a really lovely contrast with the black, allowing the plant to really stand out against the paper, in addition to further helping to create an archival feel to the pieces (which is what I want to achieve, as the work is a form of archive).

Reference Image Sources:

Gonystylus bancanus: POWO. (2019) Plants of the World Online. Facilitated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Available at: https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:77118655-1 (accessed: 29 May 2022)

Dalbergia retusa: POWO. (2019) Plants of the World Online. Facilitated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Available at: https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:490428-1 (accessed: 29 May 2022)

Hopea micrantha: POWO. (2019) Plants of the World Online. Facilitated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Available at: https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:320945-1 (accessed: 29 May 2022)