Unherd! Walking the Land

Andrew Howe introduces an exciting Shropshire-based series of walks and gatherings focusing on land justice, deep time, rewilding and more.

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A group of artists and writers gather together for Unherd! Walking the Land events to explore themes of land ownership/access, climate change, community resilience, rewilding, growing, justice and indigenous culture through walks, creative activities, mapping, discussion and research in the landscape around the Marches Mosses and Rural Art Hub close to the Welsh-English border in North Shropshire.

This is an inclusive group enabling artists to follow their individual artist practices or to find ways to collaborate. We are working together to develop longer term plans for a funded project involving the local community, creating both audiences and activists, raising awareness and much-needed hope of arriving at a collective manifesto.

All are welcome to join our events. For more information email Andrew at: andrew@andrew-howe.com

Next Events

The next event Digging Words is scheduled for Friday October 7th 2022 starting at the Rural Art Hub, 10am.

For Digging Words participants will be invited to pause on different stages of the walk and respond to a range of provocations and instructions which will invite play with words used commonly to describe the experience of the rural. These improvised texts – both writings and readings, sonic and visual – will accumulate to form the basis for a final collective performance-installation at the end of the walk. No experience necessary. All welcome.

Each event has a different theme with walking and or creative activities devised and led by one or more artists. Please consider making a donation on a "pay what you can" basis to contribute towards paying artists/event leaders, Rural Art Hub hosting, general events co-ordination and planning and potentially building towards future projects and community engagement.

The last Unherd! event of 2022 is scheduled for Friday 25th November

Values.Voices.Action.

Unherd! emerged from conversations started by Andrew Howe with other artists about extending the Mosses and Marshes project and it has opened out to link with other ventures.  We are picking up on some of the themes explored during the Mosses + Marshes international discussion panel in November 2021 which led to the Values. Voices. Actions. initiative. Read more

Unherd! is:

  • breaking away from fixed, established narratives in the rural landscape to reveal more nuanced stories
  • hosted by the Rural Art Hub, itself bringing new creative life and perspectives to a former dairy farm, home to the Willenhall herd
  • seeking to give voice to those less heard from across the local community and further afield

Previous Events

Previous events have investigated historic timelines and themes of access to land and justice, rural utopias and deep time.

Walking the Land

Led by Andrew Howe, this circular walk of just over 6 miles to Bettisfield Moss, traversed a timeline rich with stories of Iron Age/Bronze Age bog bodies, land seizure by Norman lords, Turbary rights, Land Enclosures, contentious construction of canal and railways, wind powered and steam powered corn mills, fine churches built by local aristocracy, target practice and bombing during two World Wars, industrial peat extraction, forest clearance and finally peat bog restoration and natural resurgence. 

We walked with the themes of access to land and justice in mind and returned to the Mothershippon studio at the Rural Art Hub to make creative responses.

Rural Utopias – A walk towards Hanmer Mere led by Andrew Howe and creative activities in Hanmer village.

The 6 mile circuit took us from the Mother Shippon to the edges of Bettisfield Park and the epicentre of the Hanmer estate which has had such an influence on the Mosses and surrounding landscape for many centuries. The family descends from an officer of Edward I, and later a supporter of Owain Glyn Dwr – descendants included Tory MPs, high ranking lawyers, local benefactors and they were one of the main instigators of the Enclosure Act which led to large scale peat extraction at the Moss.

During the walk we reflected on what would be different in our rural utopia – for example, if there was reduced demand for meat production, there would be less need for secure boundaries for holding livestock, and land could become more accessible and potentially open to other public uses.

Deep Time

Julie Harrison led this 4 mile walk through the landscape of Fenns Moss, describing some of the geological history of Shropshire and evolution of the Earth through a 4.6km section of the walk. This walk was inspired and based on the work of Dr Stephan Harding, whose own Deep Time Walk is available to download as an app www.deeptimewalk.org

Resources and maps for others to follow these routes and make creative responses are available.

For more information about these and other future events

All images © Andrew Howe