In and Out of Bounds part 1

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Indigenous Pavillion

Tom is exploring the possibilities of an annual cultural pavilion in the New Forest, a possible place of celebration, sharing and exchange. He is working with cultural communities from the New Forest or who use The Forest as a place to meet. His work is exploring ideas of belonging and place through workshops and material-based sculpture, questioning rural identity and creating work that connects personal stories to landscape. This work is fuelled by his two adopted Thai sons, a Thai community group he ran with his wife in the New Forest and how other communities are seen within their rural context. 

tomhall-studio.com                        

Things that are coming – Bender workshop. As a start point to examine indigenous structures, I thought it might be interesting to play with something indigenous to The Forest and closest to my European cultural heritage by inviting a group of artists to join me for a day of bender building. If you are interested in taking part in an up-and-coming workshop or have a cultural group who might like to do a workshop, please get in touch at tominglishall@gmail.com

 

Bender Building
An experimental practice-based research day exploring the possibility of an indigenous pavilion.

It was great to have a group of artists and academics come together and share in this experimental day of building. I had drawn the focus for this first New Forest Pavilion to an indigenous structure once very familiar to locals in the Forest, The bender traveller tent. When looking to share and discuss migrant cultures it is wonderful to connect with such a longstanding Forest based relationship first.  This first pavilion is different as a research tool. Invited artists included cultural links to Pakistan, Cambodia, traveller, Gahana and India, and our collective knowledge of bender making was very limited. However, what we found was that we all brought connections, inherent knowledge and cultural narratives to what we did. It’s perhaps the realisation that some indigenous making is generationally inherited if only we tap into it.

For a little more info on bender tents start with paleotool.com/2018/11/23/tents-and-the-vardo-life-what-is-a-bender/
 


The First Indigenous New Forest Pavilion The shared experience seemed to be an open question about our collective understanding and individual knowledge of indigenous making, and a truly X cultural question about indigenous knowledge. Where it comes from and where it is held. Here were some of the bigger questions the day touched on. • Are there shared links between indigenous structure building by isolated cultures? Edward Humphries suggests that there are, seen in his study of the Sami people living in Northen Europe and Native American structures. Are there shared values found in things like materials? Do we often find similar cultural solutions for problems? • Is our own indigenous knowledge inside us, inherited through generations? Is it specific to place, through environment, available materials and social need? • Could we, should we learn and use others indigenous knowledge or is this cultural appropriation? What happens when it comes to global problem solving and sharing indigenous knowledge for new drugs, agriculture and land management? Who benefits? • How do we retain our culture heritage and share it positively at the same time?

I would like to thank the five artists collaborators for their energy, hard work and insight into indigenous thinking. They are an integral part of how this project is coming about and what will be in the next part pf the project in Venice.

Joshua Raffell and Dave Smithers (The Artists Husband) - www.joshuaraffellart.com
Anusha Ramchand - www.anusharamchand.co.uk
Dayanny So – www.dayannyso.com
Kwame Bakoji-Hume – www.africanactivities.org.uk

And a huge thank you to three others who brought the range of knowledge and experience to make the day so successful.
Priyal Mistry – Creative
Anika Raza – Creative
And Edward Humphries from Portsmouth University who brought rich knowledge with his research into his paper titled – The Ancient Connections of Indigenous Architecture