Just so you know where we are going today.

By the way, the map is public, located here.

As a small intro to the first place, and one of our creative ideas, I have sent around the word and the photo to some of my friends asking for word and photo associations (freely – in English or their native tongue). Here is what I have so far for Ashendon (in the chronological order of e-mails;)):

Magda(from Poland/based in the UK)

word: ashes

photo: cemetery, autumn, romantic walk

Ahmed(Egypt)

word:    ash, old, historic

word in Arabic:     حدائق,    مقابر,    ,طبيعة

photo: garden, cementery, nature

Lyzzon(Mexico/US)

word: someone’s last name, a town in tales, ash – the rest of something

word in Spanish: apellido, lugar lejano, desconocido

photo:  color, peace, dream

Agnieszka(Poland/UK)

word: dim, still, foggy, smell, silent, air

Javi(Spain/UK)

word: wood, barrel, tradition

word in Spanish: otoño, distancia, acogedor

photo in Spanish: maderra, tradition, barrica

Ildiko(Hungary)

word: depth,

word in Hungarian: rejtely, zizeg, alom

photo in Hungarian: nyugalom, melyseg, melankolikus

Behonce Beh(Malaysia)

word: hedonism, ash, tendon

photo: Autumn, serene, eerie

And here is how it looks like on word clouds!

First the English words associated with the word ASHENDON.

Secondly all words associated with this name.

And finally words associated with the photo.

(Second cloud shows you stats too, but sadly does not work for all langauges!:/)

This Sunday, March the 15th we are going to visit ASHENDON. More info soon. Here is the photo:

‘Ashendon’

Tomorrow we will open the exhibition in Appleton. I would like to start explaining the background of my input into this project. I have finally managed to put together a map with all the places I have used to randomly name my photos. Well, maybe not randomly, but almost;)
I decided to name this exhibition Sea Land, because
1. It is also a name of a British place
2. It quite well, symbolically, describes my current state – the constant balancing between walking on the land of my new life and dreaming in the few spear moments providing me with maximum creativity needed to feel that my life carries a meaning (for myself, my family, my friends). Balancing towards harmony, which makes me a happy person.
3. Sea Land is how I currently see the UK – mixture of very traditional and established communities with constantly fluctuating migrations.

I am looking for the places I have chosen to name the photos and I want to visit them this year. Kristina mentioned she would like to join me, so I can accomplish the plan easier, with her support. Thank her for that!:) We will take new photos and discover new ‘Sea Land’, and surely blog about it;)

(originally posted on the 7th of May, 2008, here…)

…is the title of my part of the exhibition in Appleton.

Why? Sea Land is the state of my soul currently – also a place in England somewhere:) – where there is no border lien between the land and the water, everything is liquid, constantly changing form and distance…there is sometimes stability, but most of the time flow after a flow. So I guess it suits the project too…

So here it is. It started with…I guess the very fact I hated that place and didn’t want to move there! I was trapped and very lonely there…I felt abandoned, alienated…but quickly I was asked to join the community, and met few good and very interesting people…
After I separated from my husband I stayed there to gather my thoughts.
I met Kristina, who is a good friend now.
In the meantime I was invited to take part in Oxford Artweeks together with other artists from the village – simple note in my postbox!
I met Jo.

Now I need to gather my thoughts again. What do I want to say with this one? Last one was called signs and it was opened few days after my horrible marriage ended. I know now that SIGNS meant those I have seen…of the ending, of re-birth.

Today all I can say is that I have lived my last year – yes, slowly a year! – very close to the nature. i spent every single free minute of my life in the gardens of Wantage, Oxford, London…purely meditating and searching for the old self and a new path.

What I can say is that I have found it all – my old self, new country, new life and new role. I have made peace with my past and blind choices. I have forgiven myself. I enjoy life again, fully.

So here it is -  twenty titles:
Tulips, ’spring flowers’
Ticloy, ‘house of stone’
Lymm, ‘noisy stream’
Doonaha, ‘ford of the ford’
Ashendon, ‘hill overgrown with ash-trees’
Loftus, ‘house with a loft’
See Grave, ‘grove’
Annagassan, ‘ford of the paths’
Dornoch, ‘place of the first stones’
Hoy, ‘high island’
Briska, ‘brittle land’
Ahakista, ‘ford of the box’
Huish, ‘measure of land that would support family’
Zeal, ‘hall’
Doo, ‘black lake’
Ahalia, ‘lake of the salt water’
Kilbaha, ‘church of birches’
Saval, ‘barn’
Boola, ‘milking place’
Hammoon, ‘enclosure or land in a riverbed’

All of them found in a dictionary of English names (note: some of them are actually Irish). All of them on the map. I have found most of them already and I plan to visit them with Kristina during next 12 months. it was her idea to use this book (she is a writer and brilliant person!). It was my colleagues and their language obsessions that pushed me to find names that sound interesting to my ear.
So basically first were the titles. Later their meaning and real places. Only then (actually today) have I finished adding the titles to previously chosen photographs. How? Based on how they sound and what I see in the picture – so randomly, and not;)
To make it more post-modern I will try to put up a map of those places somewhere during the exhibition.

Afterwards I will start blogging about those places and see, how really could I connect them to the chosen photo.

So, lot’s of work for the next year, hihi..

(originally posted on the 11th of April, 2008, here…)