Introducing Imagining Woodlands' collaborators: Jo Dacombe

Imagining Woodlands is a cross-disciplinary project. Our next few updates will introduce each of the project collaborators, who all work in different areas and are coming together for this project, bringing their different perspectives to the work.

Old Law Beacons, Kings Wood, Corby 2014

First up is artist Jo Dacombe. Jo has created a number of art projects in and about woodlands over recent years. She is interested in the way that art can connect us with the sensory environment of woodlands and landscapes. Often Jo's art projects involve creative walks, participatory activity and moments to tune in to our sensory perception. She uses a variety of media and art forms, often as site specific work engaging with a sense of place.
 

The Hunter and the Hunted, Colwick Wood, Nottingham 2015
a storytelling walk by Sidelong

Jo collaborates often. She has been commissioned to work in woodlands to explore their history and heritage, through storytelling, family events, art installations in woods and through collaborating with other artists.

Jo is also interested in archaeology. She began working alongside archaeology in 2013, with her collaborative practice Sidelong with Laura-Jade Vaughan. Sidelong worked with Trent Archaeology to create a project about the caves of Nottingham.

This led on to Jo working as artist in residence alongside zooarchaeologists at the University of Leicester over two years, resulting in The Reliquary Project. Although this project pursued an interest in bones, the project also brought her back to landscape and thinking about how archaeologists read landscapes in different ways.
 

Bone Forest, drawing made for The Reliquary Project, 2016

The project also connected her with other archaeologists, including in the Wyre Forest and with the University of York. These archaeologists were working in woodlands and, with Jo's ongoing interest in woods and archaeology, their conversations began to form the Imagining Woodlands project.

For Imagining Woodlands, Jo is interested in ways in which she might respond artistically to the science and archaeological evidence of woods, and how a creative approach might connect people imaginatively with woodlands research.
 

Continuum, a time travelling woodland walk, Thoroughsale Wood, Corby 2017

Next update:  introducing project collaborator Dr Suzi Richer, palaeoecologist and research associate in Archaeology and Environment.

All images in this post by Jo Dacombe, except Sidelong photo taken by Matthew Vaughan.

This post was originally posted as a newsletter on 6 May 2017.