Islington Exhibits

Wild Places' Artist-in-Residence was Marilyn Collins

Marilyn Collins finish her residency this last October 2011. She has worked in the Wild Places project with the Octopus Community Network. During her residency she did some workshops with the after-school clubs in Hilldrop Community Centre and in Caxton House Community Centre. Recently, she also ran a brushwood sculpture workshop at the Ecology Centre.

Here are some photographs of the projects Marilyn worked in.

The first photograph is of a model of a pond that was built part of the Wild Places project. Marilyn worked with the After-School of Hilldrop Community Centre to make the model. This was then put on display in the community centre and people were asked to contribute ideas as to what could go in the pond. Marilyn also worked with the After-School group to get them to build their own models of a forest garden.

The rest of the photographs are of the Wild Places After-School club at Caxton House where Marilyn ran a workshop to get the children to come up with some designs for a mosaic to go out in the garden.

Are wild places exciting, relaxing, away from the crowd, helping us get in touch with nature?
Or are they scary, full of prickly plants and dangerous insects, muddy slopes, tripping vines, nowhere to eat and drink or lie down?
Many of us in cities like to get away to the countryside and respond in the first way
Our family history often engages with both of these responses
For example – some of my ancestors travelled across the USA on the Oregon trail in the 19th century. One of the family drowned in a river on the journey. My great grandmother met and married an Englishman , travelled here with him, and could never afford to visit her homeland again – another exile.
I remember my mother and sisters all loved the ‘Little House on the Prairie’.  I thought it was a romantic and sanitised version of something quite scary, and recently I took my mother to see ‘Meek’s  Cutoff’ – a realistic examination of three families and their guide lost on the Oregon trail. My mother was very shocked. Had it really been like this, or was the true story the one we see in wild west films, with long wagon trains constantly fighting off attacks from native Americans, agile wagons that can turn on a sixpence (5p?) and women who emerge from their wagons coiffed with well pressed ruffles on their dresses?

Door to the woods, 2003, mixed media. From the project Oudoor Habitats

Spriggan (detail)-1,1993, polyester resin. From The Parkland Walk series

Wild Places is an exciting new project run by the Octopus Community Network, supported by Islington Council and funded by Natural England as part of its Access to Nature programme, from the Big Lottery Fund’s Changing Spaces programme.

Four community centres in Islington will be hosting the project – Caxton House Community Centre, Whittington Park Community Centre, Hilldrop Community Centre and Holloway Neighbourhood Group.