Landscape
in Four Dimensions

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The Travelling people of the Scottish Highlands - itinerant labourers, tinsmiths, horse dealers, hawkers, pearl fishers – made their living “on the road”. Many of these nomadic folk believe that, rather than being related to the Gypsies, they are the descendants of an indigenous cultural group, perhaps of Pictish metal workers. Whatever the truth of the matter, the Highland Travellers are heirs to an archetypal way of life, and an ancient culture. Though this way of life is rapidly vanishing, the older generation, many of whom have Gaelic as a first language, still possess the vivid stories, poetry and song which, though once widespread, scarcely exist any longer among the non-Traveller population of the mainland Highlands.


When, in the 1950s, Scottish folklorist Hamish Henderson came in contact with Traveller culture, he became its immediate and life-long champion. Even then the traditional Traveller way of life was declining, as tin was replaced by plastic, and the farm horse by agricultural machinery. It is a mark of the tenacity and durability of Traveller culture that new material is still being recorded.


Most studies of Travellers’ culture have concentrated upon their arts and crafts. The fact that they have had a nomadic impulse has seemed to be context enough. But their stories, folklore and song are also inextricably linked to the landscape through which they travelled. There is a parallel to be drawn with the American ethnologist Keith Basso’s work with the Apache Indians in New Mexico. This demonstrates the power of stories as both a moral force in socialising and educating the group, and as a geographical and ecological tool, familiarising children with the harsh landscape they inhabit, before they are of an age to have to venture out, unprotected, into it.


Recent work with Highland Travellers by Bob Pegg and Mairi MacArthur (inspired in turn by Timothy Neat’s 1976 film The Summer Walkers, and his 1996 book of the same title) has produced new and interesting material which has begun to link cultural materials with landscape and specific geographical sites, giving a context in time and space to the stories and other recorded material, to reveal landscapes in four dimensions:


space, time, myth, psychology.

Many artists in the 20^th Century have acknowledged a debt to anthropology, archaeology, mythology and traditional ethnic or folk cultures, and the connections these have with images found in the archetypes of the unconscious mind which psychology, (particularly Jungian) has presented and demonstrated. Michael Tucker, in his 1992 book “Dreaming with open eyes” argues that much 20^th Century creativity is related, directly or indirectly, to the ancient functions of the Shaman. Bridge building between the worlds of the mind and body, and the forces of nature, usually experienced through the landscapes the human inhabits.


As the arts have become seen as very much an urban pre-occupation, it is too easy to dismiss the landscape as ‘elsewhere’. Modern ecological writing reminds us that the landscape is the skin upon which our urban conurbations sit. In this context it is important to develop forums in which we can discuss the relationships between our local urban contexts, and the broader contexts upon which we are, albeit often unawares, dependant.

Many writers, especially in the U.S.A., with the literary ecologists such as Ann Dillard, Barry Lopez, Gretel Ehrlich etc. present a distinctly vital and contemporary approach, infused with passion, vision, clear scientific knowledge and observation, and forward dynamic thinking, rather than a nostalgic mode. They consider particular landscapes and locations in the context of a rapidly evolving world-wide philosophy on environmental issues.

The landscapes of Scotland and the Hebrides, since the clearances, represent within the British isles, the nearest examples of wild or wilderness landscapes, but they also bear clear traces of human interaction, both in the distant and the recent past..

The present time is seeing an unprecedented surge of activity and development, which connects very clearly with some of the issues and themes at the core of the areas of writing which I have identified. There is much interest in contemporary approaches to traditional areas of culture, and much of the energy behind the recent ‘renaissance’in the highlands and islands derives from this.

The areas I wish to explore tend to have been dominated by more conventional approaches, and there is a need to demonstrate that such themes can be can be treated visually with a dynamic appropriate to their treatment in contemporary writing.

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Context

The presence of nature and ‘wild’ landscape is more important than ever before as a force for the regeneration of the individual and society as the growth of conservation areas and national parks worldwide attests. This has been recognised by a growing number of writers, scientists, ecologists and thinkers since Thoreau and John Muir,who effectively started the national parks movement in America, with the foundation of the Sierra Club.

Objectives

Illustrative work based on traveller culture has tended to the nostalgic, evoking images of past times and traditional ‘fairy tale’ descriptive imagery, influenced largely by publications intended for children.

However, during the 1980s, illustration developed an experimental and contemporary edge, together with a greater freedom from media constraints than ever before, partly due to developments in print and technology.

This proposal is to produce a demonstration / celebration of the vitality of traveller culture (and selected related cultures?) and its roots in the landscape, by utilising recent material with site specific references in order to stimulate participation and further debate.

The work is not intended to be traditional ‘pictures of stories’ but is to concentrate upon a contemporary interpretation of themes and archetypes within them, and their significance’s within the landscapes to which they are attached.

Supporting, will be a web site, to run (initially) for two years, in which works will be used, with extra layers of multi-media material. The web-site should be treated as an experimental method to demonstrate the importance of traveller culture in contemporary terms, rather than the simply nostalgic. It should also be used as a means to introduce additional and recent research material on the traveller/landscape culture to a wider audience.

A feature of this web-site would be an inter-active region, to invite discussion, links, and other participatory contributions on issues related to contemporary uses of storytelling, folk culture and landscapes in the visual arts within a world wide context. It is hoped that this activity might lead to an e-publication by the end of the second year.


The intention is to implement this as the first stage in a process of stimulating debate, creative activities and participation, art works and discussion on the subject of the human relationship with land in the visual, traditional and other arts.


The research is timely in that there has been a resurgence of interest in storytelling as an art form. There is much interest at present in traveller culture, in Scotland and elsewhere. Even allowing for the remarkable tenacity of this culture to survive, the social and economic pressures of a mass culture are undoubtedly having a leavening effect upon it, – particularly in the younger generation. The older generation who can still remember the itinerant days of their youth (with great clarity) are growing fewer by the month.

Investigate illustrative responses to themes related to landscape and contemporary ecological thinking. Research will consider texts dealing with our developing contemporary relationship with a dwindling natural world. Although the vehicle for the work will consist of accessible landscapes in the north west of Britain, the work will examine ‘big issues’ in the subject, rather than remaining concerned with particular locations. The research will explore interpretations of both themes, mediums and media. It is not intended to be an exercise in traditional narrative & natural history illustration.

Method

A selection of texts & themes will be made, and more detailed examination will then involve experimental approaches involving media and materials, constructing images which compliment them.

This will follow two strands of work: The first concerned with the appearence of selected landscapes, and mainly utilising conventional media and materials, and the second being concerned with culture and ideas, and which will explore other other media and materials, including those found in the landscape itself.


There will then be consideration and evaluation, followed by more pointedly directed work, based upon a final selection of extracts, reflecting approaches by a variety of writers.

It is important that this project is aimed at linking practical creative experiment in image making, to deep examination of the content of the subject, rather than simple application of technique.


Plans for publication or other public output: Initially in the form of a website/exhibition.
which will connect particular landscapes and their culture to issues beyond the purely local.

Significance

The intent is to explore some boundaries of the tradition of illustrating the natural landscape and human interaction with it, appropriate to the range of ideas emerging in contemporary thinking.

The illustration of these themes, strongly influenced by the english romantic tradition has often tended towards either an essentially nostalgic treatment, or straightforward pictorial representations. However, in modern writing these themes are not treated in this manner.

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© John Hodkinson. 2002