TREES, WOODS AND PEOPLE
6 NOVEMBER 2017
MONDAY 6TH NOV / 10:30 – 13:00 / FREE
On 6 November 2017, the 800th anniversary of the influential 1217 Charter of the Forest, the Woodland Trust will lead the launch of the ‘Charter for Trees, Woods and People’. The new Tree Charter will recognise, celebrate and protect the right of the UK public to access and benefit from trees and woods.
This event features a series of talks by photographers who have developed projects around and organisations actively involved in the creation and preservation of tress and wooded spaces within Merseyside.
McCoy Wynne – The Urban Forest
The Urban Forest brings together a series of photographs that picture the ‘greening’ of the urban environment. The forest of the title suggests a density of mature, vertical trunks overhung by green, leafy canopies: a land type in which trees are a dominant feature. Whilst the tree is the intended subject of these pictures, it battles to become the subject; it struggles to be seen.
The images comment not on the erosion of a natural landscape, but on man’s monumental attempt to insert nature back into a hard, urban landscape that has very nearly choked any opportunity for nature to flourish. (Julia Garcia Hernandez)
McCoy Wynne is the partnership of photographers Stephen McCoy and Stephanie Wynne they collaborate on commissioned assignments and personal projects.
John Davies – Trees Save Open & Green Space
John Davies is a documentary photographer and has recorded the changes taking place in our urban landscape and open spaces since the 1980’s. During the last 10 years he has become active in challenging some of the changes taking place in Liverpool with the loss of our open and green spaces. This talk will also explore the relationship between trees and people in the urban setting and the role trees play in politics.
John’s work around this subject involves Liverpool Open and Green Spaces CIC.
Clare Olver – The Mersey Forest
The Mersey Forest is a growing network of woodlands and green spaces spread across Cheshire and Merseyside, which has been creating ‘woodlands on your doorstep’ since 1994. The Forest is one of the leading environmental regeneration initiatives in the North West. Through working in partnership with local authorities, businesses, landowners, the Forestry Commission and Natural England, they have planted more than 9 million trees – equivalent to five new trees for every person living within the Forest area. Praised as a visionary concept, their “more from trees” approach brings a whole range of environmental, health and economic benefits to the region.
Clare Olver has been at The Mersey Forest for nearly 14 years and has lead responsibility for liaison with public and private sector landowners. Clare is currently developing the Natural Health Service which uses the power of nature to improve our wellbeing.
David Lockwood – Finding Fangorn
Finding Fangorn is a project started with a search to find new outdoor places to visit and discover with David’s son, Hugo. It draws on this experience of actively looking for what is left of old woodland spaces within Metropolitan Liverpool to explore and act out a child’s make-believe scenarios. Fangorn (from Tolkien’s ‘Fangorn Forrest’) is a fantasy place and what is left of these woodland spaces are used by many to escape from the urbanisation that surrounds them through a suggestion of wilderness. The resulting websitewww.findingfangorn.com and printed fold-out map track the outcomes of the project. Finding Fangorn is a ‘charter branch’ of the new Charter for Trees, Woods and People.
David Lockwood is a Liverpool based photographer and course leader of the Degree in Digital Imaging and Photography at the Hugh Baird University Centre, Merseyside.
Image: © McCoy Wynne