My Culture/Our Forest
Tom is exploring the possibilities of an annual cultural pavilion in the New Forest, a possible place of celebration, sharing and exchange. He is working with cultural communities from the New Forest or who use The Forest as a place to meet. His work is exploring ideas of belonging and place through workshops and material-based sculpture, questioning rural identity and creating work that connects personal stories to landscape. This work is fuelled by his two adopted Thai sons, a Thai community group he ran with his wife in the New Forest and how other communities are seen within their rural context.
tomhall-studio.com
Things that are coming – Bender workshop.
As a start point to examine indigenous structures, I thought it might be interesting to
play with something indigenous to The Forest and closest to my European cultural
heritage by inviting a group of artists to join me for a day of bender building.
If you are interested in taking part in an up-and-coming workshop or have a cultural
group who might like to do a workshop, please get in touch at tominglishall@gmail.com
My Culture/Our Forest has emerged from discussions and previous projects that I have been involved with in The Forest. Talks with groups such as TAUK (Thai Adoptions UK), the New Forest National Park Authority and African Activities and projects like Nightjar have led my research into the ideas of an annual cultural pavilion and a celebration of indigenous technologies. Questions of what this might look like, how should we structure creative ownership and ideas now fuel workshops creative output in this project.
Why am I doing this? The root of this project comes from my own family. We are a blended mixed cultural family. My wife and I are white British, having lived internationally, and have adopted two sons from Thailand. We are therefore very aware of the perceived whiteness of The Forest and how our two boys don’t fit with an Anglo-Saxon nostalgia.
My sons are proud of their cultural histories and love to share this between themselves and with others, we therefore, we started to run a Thai Camp. The camp was for adopted families in the heart of the New Forest, creating a safe space for us to celebrate our mixed heritage. After 20 years our children run it and return annually to ‘Their camp”, take position of “Their space” and deal with “Their culture”. They share their successes and their difficulties, we eat Thai food, they stand in the majority for three days and are in charge.
What am I doing? I think it is important to find empathy with difference, and to question power structures that I am part of. I hold a lot of privilege that my children don’t have. I look to discuss and empower a voice other than mine. However, I am not just an observer. I like to use the skills I have learnt to bring people together; to learn from them and to use my perspective to re-evaluate my cultural position and to help others to understand why we ultimately need to give voice and control away. In this space I make my own art works.
The Creative Pavilion research – Mixing surroundings with cultures - Things that are
concrete and things that are cultural interventions - What is place? – Things that are
fixed and things that impermanent - Impermanence of materials might make a space that is less fixed in a tradition, might make for a fluid space - A non-permanent echo of a structure that might inform – I like the acknowledgement of working within a cultural space and an indigenous other –
What will I do in Venice?