Walking Through the Underworld

Sidelong's cave walks are in progress! Visit the Sidelong blog for more images.

Dukes Wood Opening Weekend

Images from my weekend at Dukes Wood:

OPENING
TO THE SUNS
CLOSING

evening

Alec Finlay

A Walk Through the Underworld officially launched

My collaborative Sidelong project A Walk Through the Underworld is now officially launched!

We present a unique art walk exploring hidden chambers deep beneath our feet. Rediscover the caves of Nottingham through art interventions, fabricated objects and storytelling. This participatory experience explores some of these mysterious spaces and creatively re-imagines what may have occurred in the secrecy of sandstone walls.

A Walk Through the Underworld resembles a treasure trail, alternating between underground and overground and revealing artistic surprises along the route. Exploring the notions of relics, we will present a series of objects of curiosity, encouraging all cave explorers to convey myths and fictionalise history. Bring along your own intriguing objects and share a peculiar story of Nottingham.

Working with Nottingham based writer, Wayne Burrows, the walk will unveil a fantastical parallel world, simultaneously based in history and imagination. Taking some inspiration from cave history, myths and legends, the walk is also fictitious, proving things aren’t always as they seem. The events will inspire a publication that will be released in December 2013.

The walk features a series of caves that are not usually publicly accessible including: Willoughby House’s circular wine cellar, Brewhouse Yard’s cave adjoining a cosmic ray laboratory and The Salutation Inn’s haunted chambers. We will explore the very unique identities of these environments which have served diverse and unexpected functions over the course of history. Join us in our exploration!

When: 1-3pm 14th, 21st, 28th September or 5th October. Spaces are limited, booking essential.
Where: Meet outside Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem Inn
Admission: £7 (£5 concession)
14th September- Free launch event as part of Heritage Open Days
Bookings: Tickets are available from 1st August through calling New Art Exchange on 0115 9248630.

Some of the caves have steep staircases, uneven flooring and low ceilings. Please contact Sidelong at sidelonguk@gmail.com if you are interested in the project but have health or mobility issues or suffer from anxieties which may prevent you entering the caves.

A Walk Through the Underworld is supported by Arts Council England, Nottingham Cave Survey, New Art Exchange, Writing East Midlands, and The Salutation Inn.

Litmus

My workshops for the Dukes Wood project start later this month. I've written a blog post about some of my ideas for the Dukes Wood project blog entitled Litmus, click here to read it.

My open workshops will take place in the last weekend of August, I hope you can join me!

Shot in the Dark!

Our short video filmed in the darkness of Nottingham's caves is now up on our Sidelong blog, click here to see it: A Walk Through the Underworld

As the project develops I'll be sending more short clips to subscribers to our newsletter.

We are looking for donations and sponsors for our project so please make a donation and help to spread the word! Donors will receive exclusive rewards, visit the Sidelong blog for details.

A Walk Through the Underworld

We are very excited about our new Sidelong project we've just launched, A Walk Through the Underworld, about the experience of exploring Nottingham's caves. Please read the post on our Sidelong blog to find out more and sign up for updates to keep informed.

Click here to read the post

Click here to sign up for updates

Ways of Mapping Dukes Wood

A carpet of wood anemones

I have visited Dukes Wood now (as part of a new project there by Ordinary Culture) in the winter and more recently as spring breaks through. Watching how the woods develop through the seasons, turning from a skeleton structure of dried hogsweed and spindly trees to an emerging lushness of wood anemone carpets and bursting bright green hawthorn leaves.

The first time I walked through the woods it was bucketing down. But in the winter months, without leaves or undergrowth to hide it, I could see the structure of things, the way climbers were twisting up tree trunks and the undulation of the earth where mining work had moved the soil. In my mind I mapped it in terms of structural routes, verticals and horizontals, connecting elements and paths.

The second time it was beautifully sunny and full of the promise of spring. Wild woodland flowers started appearing, intriguing green pushing up through the earth, not quite big enough to identify. This time I started mapping it as a forager might, looking for clues for what might grow where and the properties of plants that may appear in future months.

Suddenly a hare appeared on my path

The third time I mapped it for sounds. It was sunny again but incredibly windy, and the noise through the trees created squeaking noises in the northern side of the woods, and huge rushing sounds at the southern edge. The wind turbine viewed from the northerly edge of the woods generated a high pitched squeal as it turned.

New growth reaches for the sun

The woods are incredibly sensory places, this wood particularly so. It seems imperative that when I run my workshops at Dukes Wood later in the year they should include sensory mapping.

But there is another map at Dukes Wood. A secret underground map, a network of drilled holes for oil extraction. Nodding donkeys are dotted about and obvious. However the trail map for the woods, found in the museum, is peppered with little crosses that mark where the wells once were but are now hidden under the undergrowth, and marked with rectangles of manmade structures that are no longer there, just traces of them remain, the odd pipe sticking up or lying along the ground.

This is the other sense of Dukes Wood that I want to engage participants in. A sense of the unseen things, the layers of the site that have been built up by history and its former uses. A sense of the hidden world deep, deep under the ground. The special qualities of rock and millions of years of layering that made this place what it is, and produced the oil in between its cracks.

I am working on a workshop idea about layering: up above, on the ground, and below.

I will be running a school's workshop on site in July, and open public workshops at the end of August. Watch my list of events for details nearer the time, or sign up to my newsletter for updates.