Art

Structures

Filignano architectural structures, published in Walking Publics/Walking Arts, 2021

This series of drawings depicts architectural structures currently being subsumed by natural rewilding. Starting at my home, I walk out and onto ancient footpaths and into the woods in Italy’s Apennine mountains, as I have done for decades. Repeatedly walking the routes that create a network between villages, I have witnessed the covering and partial disappearance of architectural structures made by the Samnite and Roman peoples, and community members who have worked the land since.

As the structure of the Italian family and labour patterns continue to shift, fewer people are sustained by working land. Dry-stone terraces built by hand to clear the ground for arable and pasture use are now largely shrouded in green: oak, beech and birch grow undisturbed, nurturing wild boar, deer, pine martin, porcupine, chamoix, wolves and bears. Hunting has diminished, birds are returning. Orchids and saffron-bearing croci give way to fungi as each new year ends.

My two homes are in Scotland and Italy, and these watercolour drawings were made from memory to make place present, whilst in Covid self-isolation in Strathaven, Scotland in December 2020.

Published in Walking Publics/Walking Arts (COVID-19 Rapid Response project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council exploring the potential of the arts to sustain, encourage and more equitably support walking during and recovering from a pandemic), 2021