The Heaths and Me is in its very early stages, but as it in part arises from coursework on Surfaces and Strategies, it’s worth briefly discussing.

I’m interested in what places mean to people and the many ways there are for expressing meaning. I’d originally intended to meet and interview as many people as I could during this module, but the pandemic made that impossible. Instead, I thought it’d be interesting to collect people’s photos and ask them about them. It’s a fairly common strategy in sensory ethnography, a methodology that interests me greatly, and it’s also something that can easily be done remotely. I mentioned this to Kim, the site manager of the East Devon Pebblebed Heaths, and she was immediately enthusiastic. Kim has moved to her position from the National Trust, was very much involved with their Spirit of Place public engagement activities, and wants to use this approach to understand people’s relationships to the heaths to better answer their needs communicate with them. 

We came up with #TheHeathsAndMe, a 2-month project starting in July 2020, asking for people to share images through social media and email, not just pretty images but images that communicate how they feel about the heaths, or what they mean to them. A series of weekly challenges are being posted online and on signage around the heaths themselves. The response has been modest so far, but I imagine we’ll find some good material once the two months is up. 

It’s my plan to pick the images I feel communicate the most – that have what Barthes describes as a punctum – regardless of their level of technical proficiency. That’s not to disregard pictures that are simply pretty – obviously that’s a completely valid expression of meaning. Just that I feel there needs to be something additional in the image. I’ll then interview the photographers and take a photo of my own in response – most likely I’ll visit the spot and photograph the spot where they stood, either down at the ground, or framing the shot ‘as if’ they were in it. The two images and a salient quote will form a single piece and a series of these will be exhibited when the heaths are launched – hopefully – as a National Nature Reserve next year. 

So, wrapped up in a single project, we have rephotography, presentation, appropriation and participation. Watch this space.