In Ghost Bird participants walked up the valley, onto the moorland and into silence. They followed a sign posted route which marked the place names in the local landscape and the history of the birds presence in the Trough of Bowland from the 1400s until now: (Miry Ellis – 1544: First Printed record of male as native; Stake End - 1700: Widespread Throughout Upland and Lowland Britain; Mere Clough – 1885: Stops Breeding in Lancashire; Higher Dry Clough – 1954: Legally Protected; Birch Bank - 1900s: Wiped out in mainland Britain due to persecution; Black Clough – 1969: 30 Breeding Pairs in Bowland; Lingy Pits – 2012: Bowland Betty Returns – 1 Breeding pair in England top-secret location 4 fledglings; Weasel Clough – 2012: 0 Breeding pairs in Bowland.

En-route to the uplands participants entered Langden Castle shooting barn, the floor of which was covered in a deep layer of peat from which emerged Lisa Whistlecroft’s watery, womby sound-scape and in which Julia Griffin, 8 1/2 months pregnant, danced a non-stop solo for five hours - her movement, choreographed by Nigel Stewart, derived from studies of the river that ran off the moorland and past the barn which the expert eyes of geologist Mike Kelly helped us to ‘see’.  A peat fire burned in the hearth and in a shadowy corner ten garments, lit by candles, hung on coat hooks. The floors of the two adjoining rooms were covered too: one with translucent-white eggs and the other in a snowy carpet of feathers. 

Onwards, they circumnavigated a mound of spent gun cartridges; upwards they climbed, now walking on a rough track at the top of which came into view a row of feather like flags pointing upwards to the massive empty sky; from here a figure, dressed in a ghostly white suit, beckoned then pointed them towards a narrowing valley down which they walked to discover the heather-lined shooting butts inside which nestled their strange and unexpected dwellers.

Participant Responses

...thank you for a wonderful day in Bowland yesterday. I can see in my mind's eye, as if a bird [hen harrier], the whole expanse of your installation from the barn by the meandering river to the vivid cartridge heap to the pacifist feathers and on to the sheltering birds in the shooting butts.

 

It was an inspirational homage to a persecuted species. I really look forward to your next creation.       

         

[…] thank you so much for bringing us Ghost Bird! It was an incredibly memorable, sensuous and moving experience. Our friends, some of whom

 

are not in the habit of going to site specific performance, were also very impressed and touched by the walk. Everyone said that it definitely altered the way they experienced the landscape.

 

I thought Ghostbird was wonderful. Your work managed to convey the fragility of existence, conception, fecundity, human/ animal co-existence challenges, nesting, and lots of other thoughts that I’ve not got the right time or brainspace to articulate properly. Matt loved it too. I felt for the life models keenly in that wind which added to the sensation of fragility. I absolutely loved the cottage with the eggs all those shades of white, and feathers, and the white wall and dark peaty corners inside with the steaming ground and pregnant woman truly inhabiting the space. The signage was just right, not too many words and properly evocative rather than telling you in your face! [...].

 

Just to say thank you for a wonderful day in Bowland yesterday. I can see in my mind's eye, as if a bird (hen harrier?), the whole expanse of your installation from the barn by the meandering river to the vivid cartridge heap to the pacifist feathers and on to the sheltering birds in the shooting butts. It was an inspirational homage to a persecuted species. 

 

Many congratulations on your magnificent Ghost Bird. The whole project was very moving set in that wonderful landscape, and both I and the friend I went with enjoyed it immensely. Thank you. A very beautiful “performance” in a lovely landscape.

 

I loved the whole experience. The signs were brilliant and I found myself scouring the area for birds and other beautiful things much more than I usually do (ordinarily I’m moving quickly, looking at big picture and then at my feet). The bad weather intensified the experience for me – but I was amongst the lucky ones who were able to see what was happening (though closing down) at the top. I’m

sad I didn’t experience the inside of the castle.

 

I felt full of energy and happy at the start. As I walked to the barn, the change to whispering made me more contemplative. The “dance” was thought-provoking, warm, cosy, pregnant – all in front of you – plenty to “look forward to.”as I walked into “silence” I felt even more contemplative. The vulnerability of the “actors” in their “nests”, their bravery, their lack of control over their destiny really caught me. I felt angry (and still feel angry) at the Hen Harriers’ plight. A bird imported for shooting...etc. I also felt calm and at one with my surroundings – appreciative and respectful. I am sure this is not the end, more thoughts and feelings will develop and be built upon. Thank you.

 

3 Mile Walk created sense of anticipations. Installation in barn was totally unexpected and dramatic. The contrast between the landscape, grouse butts and the stark paleness of the human bodies was amazing and thought-provoking. [Nature – semi man-made structures- humanity]. Very pleased to have come.

 

Thought provoking about the fragility of conservation and species; atmospheric, brave and made links for me to persecution and oppression.     

When first approached by commissioners Green Close with Live at LICA to propose an idea for Lancashire Witches 400 I knew I wanted to avoid the clichés that exists around the Pendle Witches and make a piece that considered: the fragility and vulnerability of the accused people and the harshly beautiful environment of which they were part.  

As a maker of site-specific landscape walking-performance that often takes participating audiences ‘off the beaten track’ my thoughts quickly went to the Bowland Fells over which the 12 men and women from Pendle were marched, in 1612, to Lancaster castle to await trial for with-craft. I became interested in how these 12 were seemingly hunted down through fear, prejudice, ignorance and the pursuit of power. Whilst looking at the tradition of hunting in the Trough of Bowland I became aware of the hen harrier – a beautiful bird close to extinction due to fear, prejudice, ignorance and the pursuit of grouse ... Could the harrier, and its plight, become a metaphor for the accused?

It was the breeding season 2011 and Jude Laine from the RSPB had taken me onto the moorlands at the top of Langden Valley which had been the English strong hold for hen harriers for almost fifty years. We sat silently, for a long time, watching for sky-dancing hen harriers (the ghostly grey-feathered male birds perform acrobatic rises, swoops, twists, and dives to attract their females) ... but, our waiting was in vain - no birds appeared. Soon I noticed that we were sitting in between two rows of shooting butts, camouflaged in amongst the heather, there were 20 in total numbered, in white paint, one to ten – 10 of the 12 taken to the castle were eventually hanged. My thoughts crystallised and I knew I’d found the site, and the elements, for Ghost Bird:

• the absent hen harrier; empty nests, and no eggs; heather, peat and bog;  feathers; shooting butts with curved dry stone walls; discarded gun cartridges and champagne corks; tough, tiring terrain; silent walking, watching and waiting; a massive sky, clouds, wind and rain!!

An abiding image that came to me was that of a human figure – a person, curdled up, foetal or egg like, inside a shooting butt, part sheltered but vulnerable – naked skin, veins and muscle exposed like in a Lucien Freud painting.

A short video, created by the RSPB to promote their Hen Harrier conservation project 'Skydancer' and which briefly features the Ghost Bird exhibition at RSPB Geltsdale is available to view here.

Ghost Bird in Lancaster

17 October to 7 December 2013 - Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster University

Production photographs by Manuel Vason and installation elements from the original 2012 production of Ghost Bird were exhibited at the Peter Scott Gallery, Live at LICA, Lancaster University as part of the Transformed Double Bill Exhibition. 

Ghost Bird exhibition and installation

Jan-April 2014 -  RSPB Gallery, Geltsdale, Cumbria.

Make/Believe: Design for Performance

14-31 January 2015 - Newton Building, Nottingham Trent University

Louise exhibited production photos from Ghost Bird in the Society of Brisitsh Theatre Designers national exhibition at Nottingham Trent University.