Thinking space
"...there is always the possibility of losing your way, or, as in life, perhaps finding it again." ~ Angela Summerfield
In our busy world we very rarely have space to think, or better still, space to not think, and let things float to the surface. This is often the best way to have ideas. Consider how you often have a great idea when you're in the shower, or doing something where your mind is otherwise occupied, or staring into space.
I have had many ideas, pieces of reading, conversations, experiences, floating around my head for years but never quite able to piece them together. Over the past couple of days these have started to float together like some kind of jigsaw, although in amongst that process the jigsaw is also continually getting bigger and more complicated as new thoughts and links arise. Another resident here at Cove Park said to me yesterday that upon finding the perfect book, randomly in the library here, and starting to read it that it had been really interesting but made her start thinking how much there is that she doesn't know. This idea that the more you know, the more you realise you don't know gets passed around regularly, often associated with Aristotle (although there is no definitive citation). But it is often discussed as a good thing, that if we are continually learning and finding new information, we continue to develop our ideas and challenge our thinking, whereas if we think we know everything then we become overly confident in our knowledge which can often actually be lacking (see Dunning-Kruger effect).
And so it is that more ideas arise, and things that I read many years ago come floating back with a new meaning. This project focuses broadly on women in the landscape, developed through multiple experiences of a fabulous exhibition at the Museum of Scotland several years ago called Pinnacles and Petticoats, about the pioneering female mountaineers, the explorations of Rebecca Solnit and Nan Shepherd documenting women's experiences in the landscape, my own experiences as a trail runner often taking on mountain races on my own and getting into conversations with people along the way about how "brave" it was to do it as a woman alone, the wonderful research Sarah Sulemanji, Prof Jyoti Navare and I carried out on women walking together in urban and rural environments and how the results actually challenged my own narrative about which spaces people feel comfortable in. And yet woven amongst this are also the books I've read such as Women who run with the wolves, the myths and her-stories I've learned about, the women's circles I have held, maps I've stared at, all trying to get in on the jigsaw along with new reading here from the bookshelves of the library, and conversations with others.
And so this space is a precious time to allow for all of these voices and what they might mean for what I create.
"To wander through a forest is, therefore, to become, by degrees, a part of something: a gradual fusion between human nature and Nature..." ~ Angela Summerfield
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