Sarah Long's Tread softly because you tread on my dreams performs a fluid girlhood that invites the listener into the confidence of the autofictional character, Mary. She shares her strange visions in an effort to decipher their meanings. The work plays with the notion of the aisling, an Irish poetic genre where the nation appears to the poet in a dream in the form of a woman. Mary’s dreams offer a critique of inherited language and storytelling systems, while highlighting themes and motifs that reverberate throughout Irish culture such as the impact of colonialism, Celtic mythology and an aff ..read more

This episode of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast features Tread softly because you tread on my dreams, by Irish artist and writer Sarah Long. While the title carries a tongue-in-cheek tone, much like Sarah’s broader body of work, it also captures a quietly sparkling sentiment of love, light, and the intertwining of bygone pasts and potential futures. Through its poetic and fluid narrative, this work invites listeners into the inner world of Mary, an autofictional character navigating her dreams and strange visions. Sarah deftly weaves these visions with the rich tradition of the aislin ..read more

This episode of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast features a fragmentary and poetic discussion between Beccy Mccray and Jason Singh, facilitated by Marie-Chantal Hamrock, which melts together into a rich audio tapestry. Beccy tells us about Intuition Maps – a co-created artwork set in the woodland of Irchester Country Park that leads visitors on a journey through the landscape prompting us to reflect on animal instincts in the context of climate change adaptation. Jason shares insight into his I Bring my Body to This Place to Observe the Coming and Going of Life – a sound installation ..read more

his episode of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast with David John Scarborough presents a new work, Dead Wood Burning - a musical tapestry grounded in the idea of Ubi Sunt - a rhetorical question asking where are those that have gone before us. Deftly weaving together samples of music from Pete Seeger's anti-war song 'Where have all the flowers gone?' to moments of David's own music - this is a poetic exploration of ecological breakdown, the long lasting effects of folk tradition, and personal experiences of community, family, and fatherhood. The episode concludes with an insightful discu ..read more

The first episode of our Love + Light season of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast presents Of Immeasurable Consequence by Pale Blue Dot Collective. Pale Blue Dot Collective (artists Louise Beer and John Hooper) spent four months in residence with Fermynwoods to create Of Immeasurable Consequence - originally an immersive photographic and sound based installation installed in All Saint Church, Aldwincle, from 24th March to 7th April 2024. In this version of Of Immeasurable Consequence, which has been adapted to include parts of recorded conversation, Pale Blue Dot Collective examine our ..read more

Artist Marie-Chantal Hamrock presents new audio work The Iron, The Pitchfork & The Sow in this latest episode of the Fermynwoods Podcast. Building on her film There is Something in the Ground, There is Something in the Sky from our online Triple Harvest exhibition, Marie combines real and embellished Northamptonshire histories in this tale of ritual. Thank you to Corby Borough Council Archives and artist Amanda Loomes for sharing material included in this work. Marie-Chantal Hamrock can be found at: https://www.mariehamrock.com/ More on this episode, including images and transcript, at our ..read more

The final episode of the Xylophobia season presents a radio play written by our podcast guest curators, SUBTERRA: Marie-Chantal Hamrock and Astrid Björklund. Told through the voice of the Narrator, we are presented with an eccentric cast of characters living and contending with an ever diminished and hostile landscape, made up of old mines, towering blast furnaces, an inexplicable blackness which seems to spread insidiously, and a strange red substance that emanates from the earth. Among the characters are an unnamed man who searches in desperation for 'that place' using an old ironstone amule ..read more

This episode of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast presents a new work, O' God of Weather by Saoirse Horne. O’ God of Weather combines elements of ambient music, folk song, and field recording, which together paint a vivid and imaginative world, rooted in messages of phantasm and fabrication. Somehow, through a painterly appreciation of texture, patience and solitude, the artist manages to create a sensitive and ethereal act of balladry – O’ God of Weather considers how deeply weather affects our lives - and how it can impede our access to woodland spaces. The work has a visionary awaren ..read more

This episode of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast with artist Tosca Terán draws from fungal mycelial communication research to create a soundscape which the artist herself describes as ‘perhaps a bit ominous with a dash of science fiction’. Working with the bio-electrical activity of living mycelium, in Forest UnderSound = Ways of Knowing, Tosca reveals the ethereal fungi frequencies of the oyster mushroom, pleurotus ostreatus. Threading control voltages throughout what Tosca affectionately refers to as a 'Myco-Synth' the mushroom becomes a conduit for pulsating waves, coursing through ..read more

This episode of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast features a rich and profound work by A Ton of Worms - a multidisciplinary artist and writer whose primary focus is an immersive communing with Taxus Baccata (the English yew), through both classic art forms as well as field recording, whittling, fermentation, and propagation. Their work also addresses the conservation of persecuted wildlife and plants, the maligned and misrepresented (often chthonic) species overlooked by many, and the beauty and effulgence of decay at the intersection of nature and civilisation. Wood as Home, Dirt as Ti ..read more