Space Foraging. Alex Blackmore's Map of Askam.

 

Alex Blackmore's Askam map, unlabelled, in advance of a bit of research / elicited evidence gathering.

Space Foraging.

"the rigid memorialisation of the past can inhibit conceptualisations of place that emphasise change and flux, potentially making it more difficult for people to accept and adjust to current and future change." (Mining Memories, Rebecca Wheeler. Exeter 2014 )

Thus no place is static but partakes continuously of its own change by recalling its past and projecting its future.. 

The lack of any formal heritage site here suggests an absence of any hierarchy of evidencing. There is more than one narrative here, not just one materiality, not just the human experience. Land has agency. It has its own story, evoking and remembering the past , and our actions within it. 

Walking, engaging, talking within a place makes it a conduit for  vernacular histories. The landscape - shifting, familiar, accessible, dangerous - transmits nuance and intricacies; with the variants that result from any process of reproduction and retelling .

There are other spaces, largely sealed off; waiting Rooms, waiting to become something again. Muster points, embarkation points, places to return to.

 

Everything happens between shifts; the push and pull of land and water. We occupy the space they provide. There is visible renewal, visible absorption of boats in the estuary, and of brickwork into what has become woodland. A branch of railway track reaches from the cliffs into the air above the shingles. Scree runs from stone heaps into the sand. There is a picnic area and a promontory near the football field. Walk a few hundred yards along the beach, cross chasms in the sand and let the wind shape you.

Some people fish, others collect litter unasked. They monitor the outlet pipes, note the effects of weather on the shingle, pull anchors and debris from the sand and arrest- or just observe - the progress of decay in the boats in the shadow of the pier. Dogs stretch, roll and chase. Kids roam, rediscovering den sites, measuring out a summer's territory. 

There is space here, and a sense of things continuing within it without any guidance needed; of a slow fade, a gentle transition from one state to another, into the elements that will absorb us and carry us.

Main Photograph and 3 : Lindsay Ward.

1 and 4 : Kevin Alexander

2 : JH