Standford
About
A Rural Idyll
In the Forest Garden
Inner Landscapes
Absent Presence
Trace
Work on paper
@hortus_silvam
This body of work is inspired by a journey of discovery, transforming the grass of a small Suffolk garden into a rich wealth of species for edges, hedges, shrubs and trees, climbers and perennials, delicious edibles; incorporating precious plants inherited from family members no longer alive. It is here that a world of mysterious expectancy emerges from the ephemeral, rhythmic repetition of cycles and seasons, where time confuses and dissipates.
The space is vibrant with light and life where the process of discovering is secreted into archives, catalogues, lists, chronicles, descriptions, stories, laments and fantasies. I use the moving image, where I can work alone performing unannounced and unrehearsed, capturing fleeting moments, within the parameters of a loosely defined framework which embraces the aleatory; and by post-production often extending these ideas into the imaginary.
Despite its tiny size, the forest garden is wild, an alchemy of memory and dreams, a play between artist and plants, provoking the dormant seed bank, urging new arrivals, pruning and harvesting, watching and listening. A garden full of joyful exuberance, a functional aesthetic of tangled beauty, a therapy for the (in)sanity of mind, body and soul. Challenging the senses, with patience and adversity, chaos and order, with growth, decay and metamorphosis.
The forest garden is a secret, personal, contained space to observe and listen, walk freely and dance, to research and imagine. The process of research is ongoing and secreted into archives, catalogues, lists, chronicles, descriptions, stories, laments, fantasies. Works emerge as performative acts, field recordings and moving image that deploys a non-linear, fragmented, poetic narrative, with elements of the surreal and the hallucinogenic, when aspects of the research start to speak to each other.
In 2014, Standford studied the design, implementation and maintenance of a temperate forest garden - or food forest - with leading expert and author Martin Crawford, on his research sites in Devon which include his world famous forest garden started in 1994.
The aim was to go on a journey of discovery, converting the grass of a small Suffolk garden into a rich wealth of species for edges, hedges, shrubs and tree crops, climbers and perennials and incorporating plants inherited from family members no longer alive.
The forest garden has become a riot of plants and trees designed to generate a food system creating an extraordinary space with height, colour, scent and wildlife.
The driving force behind creating a forest garden was to promote biodiversity in the face of a climate crisis compounded by the intensive, industrially farmed monocrops that dominate the surrounding Suffolk landscape.
The forest garden represents a personal, ongoing campaign to improve this landscape and bring biodiversity back to Suffolk.
The forest garden is a place where time passes with a certain slowness, in contrast with global consumer and commercial culture. This distance from the world facilitates an adventure in which process demands special attention, the necessary awareness of our relationship with nature, and more broadly within the Suffolk landscape.