A Map of Southcombe Gardens invites users on a journey of movement, imagination, and reorientation around four deemed “invasive” species in Southcombe Gardens, Dartmoor. This immersive tool combines audio and symbol to explore the relational roles between lifeforms and place, incorporating deep-listening, embodiment, and sensory engagement.
Gouache on Cotton Rag with accompanying audio
59.4 x 84.1cm
If you’re lucky enough to have caught the sun,
Feel the dappled light filter through,
and onto your bodies.
It might be cold,
So reduce your surface area.
Huddle, close your arms tight into your body,
Conserve warmth.
If it’s hot, spread out your arms
To increase your surface area
Available to the passing breeze.
Know that you’re not the only ones
clustering,
soaking,
basking,
restoring.
I’m in the top 20 rankings of British Aliens.
How am I both British and Alien?
Those words stick to me,
But not to bramble, bracken, and ivy.
All of us are, said to dominate grasslands, heath, moors and bogs.
I feel edgy, uncertain,
Pushed against,
While they belong.
What differentiates our high mobility
Other than where we’re perceived to be from?
Joseph Hooker brought me here from Sikkim in the Himalayas,
Yet I was also found in Ireland during the Gortian Inter-glacial period.
What is native now and what was native before?
Excerpts from A map of Southcombe Gardens, 2024