Alien Nation - Trespass#4
It has been nearly a year since I last wrote something for my website. I prefer to use Instagram where you can get away with a snippet of information, a few images and tags. Writing doesn’t come easy to me even if I feel that, sometimes, II have things to say. But as my blogs have made reference to some sort of trespass and this year is the 90th anniversary of the Mass Kinder Trespass I guess I ought to try say something about what I am up to.
During 2021, as we were still going through the waves of new variants of Covid 19 infections, I did manage to get some people and organisations interested in trying to welcome refugees and asylum seekers into the Peak District National Park. I persuaded the Quaker Community in Bamford to give people from the Turkish refugee community the chance to volunteer on their allotment. We also went for a walk and paddle in Edale. The engagement rangers at Brunts Barn in Grindleford organised a day for the clients of New Beginnings. 18 of them came out and had a go at mindfulness walking, dry stone building and hapa zome - a Japanese printing technique where you bash leafs onto cloth with a flat heavy stone. We also had a day at National Trust Longshaw where we had fun making masks with the children whilst the adults were taken on a guided walk by volunteer rangers. And the warden from Eastern Moors Partnerships took people up onto Big Moor (White Edge) to have a look at the bellowing rutting deer.
Two more organisations were persuaded to get on board in 2022 to do something for and with the refugee and asylum seeking communities in Sheffield. Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and Peak District Mosaic. I wrote the Arts Council Application to ask if we could work with artists alongside this programme. It would be great if we could interfere, in a good way and creatively, with the way things are done normally by the organisations who work in the Park. To nudge them a little to try something new, to challenge them in a positive way. And then maybe, later, we can be more probing and honest about what it is that makes our National Park so difficult to feel at home in when you are not a National of this country.
We will hear in March whether the application is successful. I have thought about it so much in the last 2 years that it would be such a big disappointment if it didn’t happen. So much work goes into talking, meeting, trying things out, suggesting, asking for letters of support etc. I’m not really sure if funding bodies ever understand that applications are not just written in a few days but can take a year or more of preparation. You get so embroiled in an idea that it takes you in your sleep. And you feel an immense responsibility to all those people that have put their trust in you. I’m sometimes really not sure why anyone would do this kind of thing. I ask myself that so often: why do I bother? It’s almost a form of self-harm. But I do … bother that is. So let’s see what they say. Fingers crossed
