Walking out of a matinée into the broad light of day plays on the senses - it’s like coming out of a dream about an idea, then suddenly you're pitched into the fire. Well, I’ve spent a little time in custody, too - and coming out of there is a lot more like pure relief.
This post is for the record, about what it is like to come out of climate stability, about the 2022 European Summer being a human-caused climate impact decades ahead of scientific predictions and departure into the unknown.
Fire Mosaic, 2022. London.
Leaving the studio on foot in E3, I waved to Ben as he drove by in his navy blue car; he said something like - “you’re shooting - excellent!” though I wasn't in the same cheerful mood, and carried on to Bromley by Bow Station without stopping and headed out East. I couldn’t shrug off the serious meaning of extending the fire study by travelling on the London Underground to the next case study, in Wennington, less than an hour away by public transport. There, a familiar story was unfolding. A converging emergency services, media, sudden evacuation, an extreme sense of loss, and the benign sense of humanity as a community pulls itself together while under duress. Going into something like this, there is often panic, suspicion and most certainly trauma. From the dust on my boots, my mood became pale as the powder grey gravel road.
Robert Adams - “but this does not excuse our role in the burning”
London Landscape Colours - July 18 -22, East London. 2022.
London’s clay is London dust,
Hush the red rose, hush the summer meadows green if you must,
Slating the land of our poems of olde,
Just what story are you being told?
I’ve seen it all before, broken fence posts like bones of a wrecked ship. Sirens, smoke plumes, helicopters. Now we stand at the edges of a firey outbreak in Greater London. You can see Dartford Bridge in the background and the stage view, near where my bags were laid to rest to take it in. A mosaic of dusty dryness, the scold of a fire scar with its wisdom of ages and the cosmos.
It is a lonely feeling, sombre, with a deep yearning and sadness. I get angry and scared about the pace this is unfolding and what continues to be left behind - I never knew I had such a love for England until I saw her green meadows burn away. It seems like a good time to include the words in a recent letter from Robert Adams - “but this does not excuse our role in the burning”.
To bring to light the scale and seriousness of what is being lost, over the coming months a number of ways you can learn more about what this summer looks like from the ground and space are being released. Please register or join our Patreon here to support the ongoing eco-critical research.
References:
Tom Waits - San Diego Serenade, from the album The Heart of Saturday Night 1974.
Earth Observation Images courtesy of NASA, ESA, & CEP
UK Landscape Colours - July 18 -22, Eastern British Isles, 2022.