00:00:02.160 --> 00:00:05.040
We are channeling full moon energy, right?
00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:05.440
Oh yeah.
00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:10.400
Laura said we had to channel full moon energy tonight because we might it's quite late and we might be a bit tired.
00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:10.880
Exactly.
00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:13.519
Got any hair sprouting anywhere?
00:00:13.519 --> 00:00:15.439
How are your palms?
00:00:15.679 --> 00:00:17.440
Right from 12 o'clock.
00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:22.640
I tell you what, I uh I am feeling nuts like the last two days.
00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:24.719
I'm really I'm really feeling the full moon energy.
00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:25.280
Right?
00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:26.000
Yep, yep.
00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:27.280
There you go.
00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:32.000
I think I was a bit intolerable yesterday for my wife.
00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:33.759
She was a bit like, oh, can you just go out?
00:00:33.759 --> 00:00:35.439
I'm doing this explorer thing.
00:00:35.439 --> 00:00:36.000
Have you seen?
00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:47.520
I've I'm I'm being an Arctic explorer for for Champsford Food Bank and sh and I got all my kit on yesterday because I went on the radio and I yeah, I didn't have to put the kit on to go on the radio, but you know, he was getting character.
00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:49.600
She was just like, oh god, you're exhausting.
00:00:49.600 --> 00:00:50.719
Can you just go out?
00:00:50.719 --> 00:00:52.960
Can you just go out and do your thing?
00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:56.880
I had my stuffed husky with me.
00:00:56.880 --> 00:00:59.280
I got two and a half thousand pounds now.
00:00:59.520 --> 00:00:59.920
Good.
00:01:00.159 --> 00:01:02.000
Two and a half thousand, it's loads.
00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:03.520
It's unbelievable.
00:01:03.520 --> 00:01:05.439
People have those Husky dogs.
00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:05.599
Yeah.
00:01:05.760 --> 00:01:07.439
It's good for the food bank, so hopefully next week.
00:01:07.439 --> 00:01:11.359
Gonna bring get a and then um they'll be making a statue of me in Chelmsfield.
00:01:11.599 --> 00:01:12.319
So what is it?
00:01:12.319 --> 00:01:13.680
What is it that you're doing?
00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:14.560
Land explore.
00:01:14.560 --> 00:01:16.480
No, land explorer, sorry, what did you say?
00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:17.519
Ex food exploring.
00:01:17.680 --> 00:01:18.799
Costa to Costa.
00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:19.680
What are you doing?
00:01:19.840 --> 00:01:25.359
I'm going to I'm in in one in a single day, I'm gonna go to all 28 Costas in Chelmsfield.
00:01:25.519 --> 00:01:25.680
Yeah.
00:01:25.920 --> 00:01:27.920
Something no human has ever done before.
00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:30.799
That's like a mission, like a computer game or something.
00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:32.239
All Costa.
00:01:32.239 --> 00:01:33.359
Costa to Costa.
00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:34.640
Costa to Costa to Costa.
00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:35.599
Coast to coast?
00:01:35.599 --> 00:01:35.760
No.
00:01:36.079 --> 00:01:36.239
Costa.
00:01:36.239 --> 00:01:38.000
This is Costa to Costa.
00:01:38.319 --> 00:01:38.560
Thank you.
00:01:39.519 --> 00:01:40.959
In a single day.
00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:41.359
Yeah.
00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:44.640
Nick is raising funds for our local food bank.
00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:47.439
Yeah, so I've got two and a half thousand pounds for the food bank already.
00:01:47.760 --> 00:01:48.319
Incredible.
00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:48.799
Yeah.
00:01:49.599 --> 00:01:50.879
Saint Nick, thank you.
00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:51.519
Abundance.
00:01:51.519 --> 00:01:52.239
Well done, Nick.
00:01:52.480 --> 00:01:56.400
I wash my hands of my corporate dirty work that I've been doing.
00:01:56.400 --> 00:01:59.120
I love my corporate dirty work as well.
00:01:59.120 --> 00:01:59.439
Thank you.
00:01:59.439 --> 00:02:00.560
Please keep paying me.
00:02:00.560 --> 00:02:08.960
It's a full moon.
00:02:08.960 --> 00:02:10.560
It's it's Thursday night.
00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:19.520
Welcome to Are You Creator, the podcast about creativity in Essex, the greatest county in the world.
00:02:19.520 --> 00:02:29.039
We're back here with professional Arctic Explorer and charity saint Nick Hearn as my co-host.
00:02:30.639 --> 00:02:32.319
And thank you to Mitra.
00:02:32.719 --> 00:02:36.000
Who's also awesome and does a lot of good work in the community.
00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:36.800
Thank you.
00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:44.159
We are here in the Lorca Media Studios in Chelmsford, Essex, which is a beautiful game.
00:02:44.159 --> 00:02:45.039
Thank you very much to Adam.
00:02:45.039 --> 00:02:46.960
And we've got another amazing guest here today.
00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:52.639
Who is called Laura Aziz.
00:02:54.639 --> 00:02:55.840
Dramatic pause.
00:02:55.840 --> 00:02:57.840
Dramatic pause.
00:02:57.840 --> 00:02:58.080
Yeah.
00:02:58.080 --> 00:02:59.360
Laura Aziz.
00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:04.000
Um full full disclosure, wife of Marley, who's been on the podcast.
00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:04.560
Wife?
00:03:04.719 --> 00:03:04.879
Yes.
00:03:05.360 --> 00:03:05.520
Wife?
00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:05.919
Yes.
00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:06.639
Very nice.
00:03:06.639 --> 00:03:07.599
What a family.
00:03:07.919 --> 00:03:08.639
Bless you.
00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:11.919
And now we just need to have your baby on, then we've completed the whole family.
00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:16.000
So that's so good, yeah.
00:03:16.159 --> 00:03:17.439
Yeah, done some finger painting.
00:03:17.439 --> 00:03:17.840
Yeah.
00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:18.960
What about it?
00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:20.879
Love that.
00:03:20.879 --> 00:03:21.759
Love that, yeah.
00:03:21.919 --> 00:03:24.000
And Laura, are you from Essex?
00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:25.280
I am indeed.
00:03:25.520 --> 00:03:26.080
Where from?
00:03:26.319 --> 00:03:27.039
Colchester.
00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:27.680
Amazing.
00:03:27.680 --> 00:03:28.639
Me too.
00:03:28.639 --> 00:03:29.120
Oh, really?
00:03:29.120 --> 00:03:30.400
What's your postcode?
00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:33.840
Well CO4.
00:03:34.240 --> 00:03:34.560
Really?
00:03:34.560 --> 00:03:36.240
Yeah, that was my postcode growing up.
00:03:36.479 --> 00:03:36.719
Nice.
00:03:36.879 --> 00:03:37.439
Yeah, it was.
00:03:37.439 --> 00:03:39.520
But now I'm I'm over the border a little bit.
00:03:39.680 --> 00:03:39.919
I know.
00:03:39.919 --> 00:03:41.919
Well, I heard I heard you're in the S word, aren't you?
00:03:41.919 --> 00:03:42.319
Yeah, we are.
00:03:42.319 --> 00:03:48.879
Yeah, but you know, you you you still do you still you still you still you still do your artistic practices in in culture city?
00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:55.599
My doctor's surgery is Essex, but um the library is Suffolk.
00:03:55.919 --> 00:03:57.520
My dad, my dad has this problem as well.
00:03:57.520 --> 00:04:00.560
His house is in Essex, but his post office is in Suffolk.
00:04:00.800 --> 00:04:03.599
Yeah, it's like we're we're county lines.
00:04:03.599 --> 00:04:06.479
County lines.
00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:08.560
Honestly, it'd be war.
00:04:08.560 --> 00:04:15.680
You know, in Ireland there's some pubs apparently in different I think there might be some pubs that go over a border and they have different licensing laws.
00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:19.279
So everyone has to move to one side of the pub if they have a drink after 11 pm.
00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:20.319
I'd tell you something.
00:04:20.319 --> 00:04:21.040
That'd be amazing.
00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:22.319
You've got to have your hacks.
00:04:22.639 --> 00:04:26.240
Culturally, there is something in the air, and I don't know what it is.
00:04:26.399 --> 00:04:28.639
Um what in in between Essex and Suffolk?
00:04:28.639 --> 00:04:29.199
Yes.
00:04:29.199 --> 00:04:30.959
Do you think what there'll be war?
00:04:30.959 --> 00:04:34.480
Because Chelsea's trying to take over Braintree at the moment.
00:04:35.839 --> 00:04:43.680
Thing is about England war is kind of I don't know, it's a bit slow and sneaky.
00:04:43.680 --> 00:04:45.920
Like the way people do things around here.
00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:48.720
So Essex is just crawling, crawling into Suffolk.
00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:49.680
Uh I don't know.
00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:51.920
Uh it's a it's a big it's a big conversation.
00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:57.199
But yeah, it's it's um I mean there's a bit of cultural imperialism from Suffolk bringing Ed Sheeran in, you know.
00:04:57.199 --> 00:04:59.120
They're really taking over.
00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:00.480
Yeah, we've got Ed.
00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:01.360
Yeah, we've got Ed.
00:05:01.519 --> 00:05:03.759
Yeah, it's Bigger than Damon Alburn now, so yeah, deal with it.
00:05:03.759 --> 00:05:06.079
It's Bigland the Prodigy and Damon Orban together.
00:05:06.399 --> 00:05:07.920
Gosh, yeah, true.
00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:09.439
Yeah, cultural warfare.
00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:12.800
So you think Suffolk are trying to encroach on Essex or the other way around?
00:05:13.040 --> 00:05:20.720
No, no, I it's not about encroaching, it's just I noticed the difference that I feel like I am actually from Essex when I'm in Suffolk.
00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:21.120
Yeah.
00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:27.360
And I've been trying a lot to kind of feel my way into Suffolk life and the idle of Suffolk.
00:05:27.360 --> 00:05:31.040
Um but yeah, it's not quite it's not quite that, I think.
00:05:31.040 --> 00:05:34.480
Um yeah, I'm I'm I'm starting to feel the three shanks.
00:05:34.480 --> 00:05:36.720
Three shanks, what's that?
00:05:37.199 --> 00:05:41.199
You know, the three blades, the syaxes, yeah, C-axes.
00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:43.120
But you know, anyway, yeah.
00:05:43.120 --> 00:05:43.920
Oh wow.
00:05:43.920 --> 00:05:44.079
Yeah.
00:05:45.120 --> 00:05:46.800
What even is the Suffolk flag?
00:05:46.800 --> 00:05:49.279
No one knows because it's not cool.
00:05:49.279 --> 00:05:49.759
It's not cool.
00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:50.639
No, I don't know actually.
00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:51.759
What's on the Suffolk flag?
00:05:52.480 --> 00:05:53.360
But we don't need to know.
00:05:53.600 --> 00:06:01.680
Anyway, but yeah, it is it has been important for me, you know, knowing and finding my place as an Essex person, I think.
00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:09.439
Do you find that do you I mean I find that I go my Essex-ness increases quite a lot when I'm outside of Essex and if I meet someone else from Essex, especially.
00:06:09.439 --> 00:06:15.439
I feel like a cultural ambassador and I've got to go a little bit more Essex, a little bit more geyser when I'm somewhere else.
00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:36.240
I mean, it for me, like being multicultural and and having, you know, not really being from anywhere ever, I find it, you know, I find it interesting when I choose to wear the label of being from Essex or being from Suffolk or being from somewhere else, or if I'm, you know, saying it to if I go back to Egypt and I'm like, you know, I'm from Essex, they just hear sex.
00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:38.639
So it becomes a bit more intramural.
00:06:38.639 --> 00:06:41.279
I'm from London.
00:06:41.279 --> 00:06:45.199
Otherwise, they're gonna stop thinking that I'm talking about sex.
00:06:45.439 --> 00:06:47.279
We get overlap by about the time we're five, right?
00:06:47.279 --> 00:06:50.240
Yes, Essex does have a word sex in it.
00:06:50.480 --> 00:06:55.040
Yeah, but the rest of the world only hears the three letters sex, like, I'm from sex.
00:07:00.079 --> 00:07:05.759
My brother lives in Tokyo, and when when we when we catch up on Skype or something, he just loves my kids' accents.
00:07:05.759 --> 00:07:08.079
He's like, oh my god, listen to those little geezers.
00:07:08.079 --> 00:07:10.160
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:16.000
They just sound normally normal to me, but for him, they're like, in it, yeah, what, yeah, get me a bottle of water.
00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:19.519
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:19.519 --> 00:07:20.079
I love it.
00:07:20.079 --> 00:07:21.680
Yeah, leaning into that.
00:07:21.920 --> 00:07:24.560
Wow, that's the longest Essex chat we've had in a long time.
00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:26.000
Greatest cante in the world.
00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:27.439
Um, are you creative?
00:07:27.839 --> 00:07:28.480
Yeah.
00:07:31.759 --> 00:07:33.680
Now Sankity doesn't have to guess what you do.
00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:34.240
I don't.
00:07:34.240 --> 00:07:36.319
Because we Sankity already knows.
00:07:36.319 --> 00:07:40.240
But our listeners would like to know what does a Laura Aziz do?
00:07:40.480 --> 00:07:41.360
Oh my goodness.
00:07:42.959 --> 00:07:44.720
Otherwise, I'm gonna read it off your website.
00:07:44.959 --> 00:07:45.920
Yeah, go for it, go for it.
00:07:45.920 --> 00:07:47.279
Shall I read it off your website?
00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:48.000
Yeah.
00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:50.639
Let's see if you agree with this anymore.
00:07:50.639 --> 00:08:04.240
Um, Laura Aziz is an artist whose creative practice reimagines contemporary cross-cultural relationships with land and nature through wildcrafting, community herbalism, earth science, and visual ethnobotany.
00:08:04.560 --> 00:08:04.879
Yes.
00:08:05.199 --> 00:08:06.079
Ethnobotany.
00:08:06.079 --> 00:08:08.319
I've never ever even said that word before.
00:08:08.560 --> 00:08:08.959
I love it.
00:08:09.279 --> 00:08:09.680
What is it?
00:08:09.680 --> 00:08:11.279
What's ethnobotany?
00:08:12.720 --> 00:08:14.399
Yes, uh, ethnobotany.
00:08:14.399 --> 00:08:24.720
Botany, obviously being the study of plants and plant life, and then ethno being the ethno the ethnicity, the the the human relationship to those plants and that that that land.
00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:28.879
So it's kind of the anthropology of plants and place.
00:08:29.519 --> 00:08:31.040
Anthroetnobotany, of course.
00:08:31.360 --> 00:08:35.519
So ethnobotany specifically, yeah, is locating those plants to a people.
00:08:35.519 --> 00:08:47.120
So if you're from Chelmsford, like a dandelion could be called something, but if you go to Colchester, a dandelion, the dandelion of Essex, but then if you go to Colchester, it might be called something else.
00:08:47.120 --> 00:08:48.159
Oh, that's so interesting.
00:08:48.159 --> 00:08:51.840
And the use from place to place is different from place to place.
00:08:51.919 --> 00:08:53.600
So I I I find that really interesting.
00:08:53.600 --> 00:08:58.960
Uh you know, barn owls are called Billy Wicks in Essex, and they're called Molly Dishwasher.
00:08:58.960 --> 00:09:01.600
I'm thinking oh no, something like that in Kent.
00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:05.279
And I love all these different words for for um plants and animals.
00:09:05.519 --> 00:09:05.840
There you go.
00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:06.799
Ethnobotanist.
00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:09.440
That's ethno- No, but that would be floor fauna.
00:09:09.759 --> 00:09:10.559
No, not flora and fauna.
00:09:10.559 --> 00:09:15.120
But yeah, that's the that's the that's that's the the the feeling of fascinating.
00:09:15.120 --> 00:09:15.919
Yeah, yeah.
00:09:16.159 --> 00:09:20.159
So of what what interesting um names have we got for stuff in Essex?
00:09:20.480 --> 00:09:25.039
Oh, um, yeah, there's there's uh oh that's a really good question.
00:09:25.759 --> 00:09:28.080
What you know, what sort of defines Essex?
00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:38.879
Because I think like, you know, when you look at the um when people think about the landscape of I guess everyone really thinks about Constable and Dedham and you know the Dedham Vale and the river and that sort of stuff.
00:09:39.519 --> 00:09:39.919
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:43.279
That's amazing like, you know, that that is that's like quintessential Essex, right?
00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:44.240
Yeah, yeah.
00:09:44.240 --> 00:10:40.960
But it's kind of framed in in the past, and it's kind of like, you know, a snapshot of what life used to look like as a rural, a rural landscape, and providing a lot of the um of of uh the agricultural production to London, and it's kind of the offspill of that, so it's kind of you know people that would be working the land, um, and that's a very hard graft, and uh yeah, so I think that there's always that that look at deep dive into the past when we think about Essex and its old ancestral relationship to to but now it's changed, it's completely changed, and and that kind of separation from where we are and where we were is really interesting, especially if you are like me from a migrant you know background, and then all of a sudden that's another overlay that you have to kind of tell the story of where you live and yeah, yeah, but everyone's still in love with those olden days times, aren't they?
00:10:41.519 --> 00:10:45.759
When you have your cultural identity, I think like part geyser, part haywain.
00:10:45.759 --> 00:10:46.399
Yeah, exactly.
00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:47.759
You know, yeah, yeah.
00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:51.120
And and also I suppose in Essex, Essex is interesting, isn't it?
00:10:51.279 --> 00:10:53.120
Because I'm just loving that.
00:10:53.120 --> 00:10:55.120
Part geezer, part Heywain.
00:10:55.120 --> 00:10:56.080
Did you know?
00:10:56.159 --> 00:10:58.559
Um It's like a centaur, but I've got wheels.
00:10:58.799 --> 00:10:59.759
Yeah, exactly.
00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:02.000
The Heywain is coming back to Essex.
00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:02.879
I know, I hers, yeah.
00:11:02.879 --> 00:11:07.679
Probably from Fraser, but yeah, um No, it's gonna it's gonna be where's it gonna be on display?
00:11:07.679 --> 00:11:10.559
Uh in at Dedham, I think, at Flatford Mills.
00:11:10.559 --> 00:11:13.600
Is it or in a museum somewhere in Ipswich?
00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:15.519
They're gonna have to have some security, yeah.
00:11:15.679 --> 00:11:16.080
Big time.
00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:18.000
Oh it's an old wagon.
00:11:19.440 --> 00:11:21.519
Yeah, I was in the Heyway in the National Gallery.
00:11:21.519 --> 00:11:22.399
It's mad.
00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:28.720
Like if you go to the National Gallery, you can just walk through a couple of rooms and it's like bangers, it's like saying all the bit all the biggest bands ever.
00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:42.960
Because you've got um Whistle Jacket, you've got the Heyway, and you've got the um Tiger in a Tropical Storm, you've got uh The Ambassadors by Hans Halbian, all like in these rooms, you just walk in between them, you're like, Well, how can there be that this many famous paintings all like in one bit?
00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:48.559
Yeah, Gainsborough, yeah, amazing, such good Turner, The Fighting Temerera and stuff.
00:11:48.559 --> 00:11:50.320
Oh, that's amazing, so much good stuff there.
00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:52.000
Yeah, I'd highly recommend that.
00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:58.639
But like the Elgin Marbles should one day return to Athens, we're gonna bring the Hwain back to Essex.
00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:00.159
Reparations.
00:12:00.559 --> 00:12:01.519
Reparations, yeah.
00:12:01.519 --> 00:12:05.679
So yeah, once the Highway's back at Essex, we're not letting it go back to London, are we?
00:12:05.679 --> 00:12:09.120
No, that's no, let's keep it, keep Essex for Essex.
00:12:09.600 --> 00:12:10.080
Yes.
00:12:10.639 --> 00:12:14.080
And Grayson Perry, let's repatriate all of his his artworks as well.
00:12:14.320 --> 00:12:15.120
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:12:15.120 --> 00:12:16.559
That's it, that's pretty good.
00:12:16.559 --> 00:12:16.960
Yeah.
00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:19.840
So let's look at up on a hayway.
00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:20.720
Pardon?
00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:22.000
What were they even taking?
00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:22.559
Just some hay.
00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:23.600
Some what were they taking?
00:12:23.600 --> 00:12:24.000
Some hay.
00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:25.600
Yeah, hay, they were just taking hay, weren't they?
00:12:25.600 --> 00:12:26.240
It's a hayway.
00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:27.679
Yeah, I think so.
00:12:27.679 --> 00:12:33.200
Just like, yeah, how you can make that much money off some hay, but well, you've got to move hay around.
00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:34.080
Yeah, you do.
00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:39.600
And yeah, we live on a where we see the hay being moved every day where we live, so it's yeah, it's a big job.
00:12:39.600 --> 00:12:39.919
Every day.
00:12:39.919 --> 00:12:45.200
Marley, Marley on his back, like well, you can roll it, you wouldn't want to put it on your back.
00:12:45.200 --> 00:12:45.840
It'd be heavy.
00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:46.799
Be well itchy.
00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:47.519
Yeah.
00:12:47.519 --> 00:12:50.720
These ones are wrapped in plastic, so yeah, that's alright.
00:12:50.720 --> 00:12:53.440
But yeah, you do, yeah, you need a couple of people to push the hay.
00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:02.080
I suppose that Essex is really interesting though, because you've got so many different landscapes.
00:13:02.080 --> 00:13:18.639
And you know, when you think about it, really, you've got um, you know, you've got your salt flats from Molden, you've got oysters in in Mersey, you've got um la whole dengue, like like crazy, like ecosystem with like, you know, all of all the muddiness and stuff, yeah, and estuaries.
00:13:18.639 --> 00:13:25.200
Then you've got your beautiful, constable green valleys and just brilliant, isn't it?
00:13:25.200 --> 00:13:25.840
Essex.
00:13:26.159 --> 00:13:26.480
Yeah.
00:13:27.759 --> 00:13:32.399
People were really surprised when they come here that they haven't been to Essex Pro, and they're like, oh, actually, it's it's really nice here.
00:13:32.399 --> 00:13:32.720
Mm-hmm.
00:13:32.720 --> 00:13:37.519
Because they just think it's I don't know what they think it's gonna be, they're just one big stiletto or something.
00:13:37.519 --> 00:13:38.000
White.
00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:43.919
It's just one big white stiletto and a four quarter burning, and they're like, Oh, I just thought that was gonna be Essex.
00:13:44.159 --> 00:13:44.799
I'm afraid so.
00:13:45.039 --> 00:13:49.200
But look at it, there's loads of really nice countryside and loads of um diversity.
00:13:49.440 --> 00:13:50.720
Diversity in Yeah.
00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:52.879
You got mud on the stiletto as well.
00:13:52.879 --> 00:13:56.000
That's true.
00:13:56.240 --> 00:13:58.799
Well, actually, a stiletto would be good for wading, I suppose.
00:13:58.799 --> 00:14:02.159
That is maybe that's where it came from.
00:14:03.120 --> 00:14:04.080
Yeah, I know.
00:14:04.080 --> 00:14:06.799
I don't know where it came from.
00:14:06.799 --> 00:14:07.279
Me know.
00:14:07.279 --> 00:14:08.159
What stiletto?
00:14:08.159 --> 00:14:09.200
Yeah, I can't remember.
00:14:09.200 --> 00:14:10.240
There is a story in that.
00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:11.679
The white stilettoes.
00:14:11.840 --> 00:14:12.080
Yeah.
00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:13.279
No white, not white.
00:14:13.279 --> 00:14:17.440
I just don't remember where like high heels came from, but that's a whole nother subject, isn't it?
00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:18.720
I don't know.
00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:21.039
We've got to look at some ethnobotany on this.
00:14:21.919 --> 00:14:22.879
What's the amber?
00:14:22.879 --> 00:14:28.639
Definitely not land work, that's what I know.
00:14:28.879 --> 00:14:29.440
No, what?
00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:32.799
Then it could be be good for aerating a lawn.
00:14:33.039 --> 00:14:33.840
Yes, that would be.
00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:34.720
Yes, it would be very good.
00:14:35.039 --> 00:14:36.320
Just get the stilettos to walk around.
00:14:36.480 --> 00:14:36.960
Yeah, yeah.
00:14:37.200 --> 00:14:41.679
Just on just put on like some um Sophie Ellis Becks to murder on the dance floor or something.
00:14:41.679 --> 00:14:46.879
Give everyone a prosecco and and their high heroes and just get them to walk around and they'll aerate the whole thing.
00:14:47.200 --> 00:14:49.360
I absolutely love that, sure.
00:14:49.360 --> 00:14:52.159
That is that is brilliant, that's brilliant.
00:14:53.519 --> 00:14:57.919
And then before the end, Molly's Field is perfectly aerated, and it's ready for crops.
00:14:58.559 --> 00:14:59.039
Good words.
00:14:59.039 --> 00:15:00.799
That's bloody brilliant.
00:15:00.799 --> 00:15:09.600
If we were in 1980 where women wore white stilettos, then yeah, like I haven't been to a nightclub in a long time.
00:15:09.679 --> 00:15:10.960
I don't know what people wear now.
00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:12.720
Comfy shoes.
00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:20.240
Jelly's the club YP or you've got no one's doing stilettos.
00:15:24.960 --> 00:15:36.159
So Laura, tell us what so you've you've up in Colchester now, you're doing all the lovely stuff I know from before that you've done around foraging and plants and stuff.
00:15:36.159 --> 00:15:41.440
Is that what's prompted you to go into all of this kind of stuff more deeper?
00:15:41.440 --> 00:15:44.799
The land stuff and living off the land?
00:15:45.840 --> 00:16:04.159
Yeah, I guess like when you're a wildcrafter, you're always going out and you know, out on public footpaths and meeting that kind of um meeting all the different barriers that come up, and pollution to land access to all these different kinds of things.
00:16:04.159 --> 00:16:23.200
And then, you know, the next step is once you're that thick in it, and obviously having Marley who'd done all his work at um different farms and and had learned his craft, it was sort of time to think about taking it a bit more seriously and and being out um being out as tenant farmers of of a patch of land.
00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:27.279
Um which is how's that transition been for you?
00:16:27.279 --> 00:16:30.399
Bloody hard.
00:16:30.399 --> 00:16:33.120
Like oh my god.
00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:36.639
Like, yeah, that could be a whole positive.
00:16:36.960 --> 00:16:39.120
No one no one ever said farming was easy.
00:16:39.840 --> 00:16:42.000
Yeah, have you got animals and stuff on it?
00:16:42.080 --> 00:16:44.240
We don't yeah, we've got a child who's 18 hours.
00:16:44.240 --> 00:16:52.320
It's only when you said the hay and stuff, and I'm imagining, oh my god, these guys must be up at three o'clock in the morning feeding the cows.
00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:55.200
I tell you what, I'll tell you what the baby's not big enough to pull a plow yet.
00:16:55.440 --> 00:17:00.320
I'm at I'm up at three o'clock in the morning, but it's um milking out.
00:17:00.720 --> 00:17:10.319
So that's what you know, we'll we'll we'll just talk about your background as well, because you used to do a lot of sort of like foraging walks and and and um community things so people can understand their connection to the landscape.
00:17:10.319 --> 00:17:11.440
Yep, yeah.
00:17:11.440 --> 00:17:14.640
So um, and you did some in Chelmsfield as well, didn't you?
00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:18.640
Like so, what would happen on one of these like sort of guided foraging walks?
00:17:18.640 --> 00:17:23.200
Because, you know, it is an artistic practice as well, as uh sort of community engagement.
00:17:23.440 --> 00:17:30.640
Yeah, um for me those walks were all about bringing people together and kind of showing them actually what's around.
00:17:30.640 --> 00:17:54.160
Like it's like for me, it was always a dimmer light turning on the lights a little bit for for people to be able to understand the background that you walk past every single day is actually is actually alive and there and semi-edible, so yeah, yeah, edible, medicinal, but also yeah, and I think that's where I'm now in my practice, going way beyond the but can I eat that kind of question.
00:17:54.160 --> 00:18:09.359
It's it's actually like it's the justice that that exists around the whole practice as well, and starting to really deepen that and see what I can take from how far can we go with this, and I think that that's where my practice is definitely evolving.
00:18:09.359 --> 00:18:34.799
I think foraging for me was just like this ultimate, like you know, when you've got something so amazing or you've seen something so amazing, and you're just like, oh my god, it's a full moon, that's if you see the moon, oh my god, everybody, and it's that like that joy jive, that joy, you just can't like I have to tell everyone I know because it's like once you know, you can't unknow those things.
00:18:34.799 --> 00:18:45.200
So if you're going out on a walk with me, you're never just it's not just like you know, I'm just walking and then we're talking, it's like walking and then oh look at that! Like whoa, there's a horse of like two.
00:18:45.519 --> 00:18:48.880
So with that engagement, you know, that's people need to know what they're protecting, right?
00:18:48.880 --> 00:18:53.200
And what they're fighting for, and you know what what they're in danger of losing as well, I suppose.
00:18:53.200 --> 00:19:02.480
Especially um, yeah, I was laughing the other day because you get all these uh housing developments by Red Row often quite they're always cool, they're always named after what they're taking away.
00:19:02.480 --> 00:19:04.880
Oh Meadow View and things like that.
00:19:05.279 --> 00:19:06.799
Cow pasture lanes, yeah, yeah.
00:19:07.599 --> 00:19:16.480
And it's just and I know even like near Colchester where you guys are as well, like they they were talking about this massive great taid of triangle development of new houses and stuff.
00:19:16.480 --> 00:19:20.720
And it's all sort of taken away this countryside of Essex that we'll never get back.
00:19:20.960 --> 00:19:22.640
No, no, no, I don't know.
00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:28.559
So so if people so if people have a deeper understanding and relationship with that, bingo.
00:19:28.799 --> 00:19:29.680
Yeah, definitely.
00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:37.680
And there's that agency that is the ability to then maybe stand up and protect it, or to even be able to understand what it is that you're even looking at.
00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:46.160
If you're just looking at green background, or that's what most people think it is, it's just like a background, like you know, I don't, you know, like this.
00:19:46.160 --> 00:19:50.079
But we all understand that that's a a T um I've got a TV behind me.
00:19:50.079 --> 00:19:57.200
But it's like that the background is is is a TV, but actually it it's made up of all these different components, and yeah.
00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:00.559
Listen, listen, guys, it's not just a selfie background, alright?
00:20:00.559 --> 00:20:03.839
You can eat it, you can make medicine out of it, animals live there.
00:20:03.839 --> 00:20:06.160
There's a lot of ethnobotany going on.
00:20:06.799 --> 00:20:07.440
Love that.
00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:21.440
Yeah, but there I I guess there is because look, I I've known Laura for a good few years now, and I remember meeting Laura um back in the meadows when um you guys had that art thing, yeah.
00:20:21.440 --> 00:20:44.240
Um and I remember from there Laura doing the foraging with some of our Asian women here, and the feedback that we got was it was amazing because they started to think about back home and you guys, the videos that I used to see were they'd walk into a car park, then they'd they'd pick up all these little plants, and next minute they're boiling them.
00:20:44.319 --> 00:20:44.480
Right.
00:20:44.480 --> 00:20:49.680
But it's interesting when when you think we had Catalina in the other day, okay, from Columbia.
00:20:49.920 --> 00:20:50.720
From Worcester, yeah.
00:20:50.880 --> 00:20:53.440
From Columbia, yeah, from Columbia, but from Columbia.
00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:55.599
I mean it is they both begin with C O L.
00:20:55.599 --> 00:21:03.680
Yeah, but you know, she you know, when she when she was saying, like, you know, coming to England and seeing foxes and stuff was like really like exciting and exotic wildlife.
00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:11.599
I suppose if you're from a different country and someone actually shows you what you can forage and what's in the landscape, it suddenly comes to life, and you're like, Whoa, that's amazing.
00:21:11.599 --> 00:21:12.319
Yeah, yeah.
00:21:12.480 --> 00:21:19.759
And for me, it's it's about connecting those plants families to the plant variety that is back home.
00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:21.680
Yeah, so that's a big part, you know.
00:21:21.680 --> 00:21:25.039
Just like we are all from one family of human race, right?
00:21:25.039 --> 00:21:30.640
But we've got these different adaptations of to where we've come from, and the same with plants.
00:21:30.640 --> 00:21:42.400
So you can find, you know, you can find an apple here, and you can also find an apple in Pakistan, but they're gonna be different, but they're gonna be the same, but you can use them similarly, even if one is super sharp, yeah, one is super sweet.
00:21:42.400 --> 00:21:46.160
And it just takes a bit of a shift to understand that you're still getting the same.
00:21:46.720 --> 00:21:47.759
Do you know what's brilliant?
00:21:47.759 --> 00:21:59.759
If you go to Lafco's farm in Chelmsford, they've got an apple tasting station, and they've got about they've got about 30 or 40 different types of apple that they they grow because they're trying they try and diversify livings, and you can like cut off a little bit and try.
00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:00.559
Yep.
00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:02.799
I've been trying to work my way through all the apples.
00:22:02.799 --> 00:22:04.880
Not that I'm buying, I am buying them.
00:22:04.880 --> 00:22:05.680
I'm not laughing.
00:22:05.680 --> 00:22:07.440
Sorry, I'm not just going there just eating them.
00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:11.200
I'm buying the apples afterwards, but I'm just I'm I'm I'm doing my little tasting notes.
00:22:11.359 --> 00:22:15.839
Yeah, that's a rare thing, you know, to be able to know different 40 different species of apple or whatever.
00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:20.720
Did you know there was 20,000 different kinds of species of rice once upon a time?
00:22:20.720 --> 00:22:27.519
And and now we've like monocropped it down to like, you know, five or six that are being sold in shops.
00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:30.720
Banana growers are terrified, aren't they?
00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:32.559
Because it's become a monoculture.
00:22:32.559 --> 00:22:41.920
They used to be there used to be like tons and tons of different types of bananas, and they just come down to one banana, and they said, Oh, all it takes is one little crazy little virus to come along, or like a bug or something.
00:22:41.920 --> 00:22:44.000
No more bananas.
00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:44.880
Yeah, that's it.
00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:45.839
No more bananas.
00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:49.599
Bananas are fragile, they can be destroyed.
00:22:49.599 --> 00:22:51.440
Yeah, in a cake.
00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:52.400
And that's why it's important.
00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:59.200
And Tagita, that that's why it's really important to have all these different varieties of apples.
00:22:59.279 --> 00:22:59.519
Yep.
00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:00.400
And bananas.
00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:01.920
Yeah, definitely.
00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:02.799
And people.
00:23:02.799 --> 00:23:03.680
And people.
00:23:03.839 --> 00:23:04.640
Yeah, definitely.
00:23:04.880 --> 00:23:10.079
And we don't end up with a monoculture of you know, phone phone people we need to rem I don't know.
00:23:10.079 --> 00:23:12.240
Phone people.
00:23:12.240 --> 00:23:12.799
Yeah.
00:23:13.200 --> 00:23:15.200
Yeah, I don't think we should have phone people either.
00:23:15.519 --> 00:23:16.880
No, no, but you know what I mean?
00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:22.400
Like that whole thing of like my one answer Instagram kind of mind.
00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:27.839
But it's like, let's let's look at 40 different types of apples and see what wisdoms they've got to share with us.
00:23:28.079 --> 00:23:28.960
Yeah, absolutely.
00:23:28.960 --> 00:23:30.559
That makes sense.
00:23:30.559 --> 00:23:37.119
Can I um go back to so the farming bit now that you're there?
00:23:37.119 --> 00:23:39.920
What kind of bits are you guys harvesting there?
00:23:39.920 --> 00:23:40.640
What how's it?
00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:45.680
I mean, Marley went through some of the bits, but how much further have you guys got from his body?
00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:46.720
Oh, so I don't know.
00:23:46.720 --> 00:23:48.640
He was on like this time last year, I think.
00:23:49.200 --> 00:23:50.559
So you guys were just starting then?
00:23:50.720 --> 00:23:50.960
Yeah.
00:23:51.039 --> 00:23:53.039
Um He's cut off his dreadlocks since then.
00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:55.359
He has cut off all his dreadlocks.
00:23:55.359 --> 00:23:56.079
Oh wow.
00:23:56.079 --> 00:23:57.440
He's a dad now.
00:23:57.440 --> 00:23:59.920
Well, not just that.
00:23:59.920 --> 00:24:02.240
I think it's is a transformation, to be fair.
00:24:02.240 --> 00:24:04.480
We've been going through quite a lot, and I think, you know.
00:24:04.480 --> 00:24:05.599
Oh, amazing.
00:24:05.599 --> 00:24:05.920
Okay.
00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:06.640
Yeah.
00:24:06.640 --> 00:24:07.200
Wow.
00:24:08.079 --> 00:24:09.680
So yeah, what life on the farm?
00:24:09.680 --> 00:24:10.640
What's going on on the farm?
00:24:10.960 --> 00:24:11.680
Life on the farm.
00:24:11.680 --> 00:24:29.200
Uh yeah, so we planted loads of trees in a part of like an agroforestry strip that we've been like trying to test, and um yeah, so the fruit trees are in, veg bags are being slowly delivered round to people within a five-mile radius.
00:24:29.200 --> 00:24:30.799
I mean, I haven't had much to do with it.
00:24:30.799 --> 00:24:35.039
I managed to um secure some funding to put a borehole in.
00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:36.400
What is a borehole?
00:24:36.400 --> 00:24:36.720
Yeah, it's a big thing.
00:24:37.039 --> 00:24:39.200
It's not for boars, it's not for a pig like boars.
00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:40.400
It's water.
00:24:40.640 --> 00:24:40.960
Yep.
00:24:40.960 --> 00:24:48.960
You drill, we drilled 15 metres deep until we tapped into water that is on the water table.
00:24:48.960 --> 00:24:54.799
And then you're drawing that water up so that you can irrigate your own plants.
00:24:54.799 --> 00:25:08.240
That right there is the ultimate epitome of my creativity right now was watching that water come up from the borehole.
00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:08.960
That's incredible.
00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:13.519
Did you have to um get like a big digger thing with um a spinny spinny drill?
00:25:13.759 --> 00:25:14.480
Uh well, we didn't.
00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:15.759
50 militres is so long.
00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:16.640
That's so deep.
00:25:16.640 --> 00:25:17.359
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:17.359 --> 00:25:25.519
And and we just um we tapped right up until like it was just below the London clay.
00:25:25.680 --> 00:25:26.079
Yeah.
00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:35.920
So London clay is like London blue clay, which kind of is like a geographical area that is from here all the way up to London, and it spans out over to Kent.
00:25:35.920 --> 00:25:40.240
And it's like the different layers underneath the soil that exists.
00:25:40.240 --> 00:26:04.400
So you've kind of got stones, and you've got sand, and then you've got um maybe more like sandy kind of, and then you've got clay, and then you've got blue clay, and then under that you've got chalk, and then under that you've got like thousands and thousands of years, or millions of years, of um like fish bones and whale bones that are all like these compressions, and it's so funny.
00:26:04.400 --> 00:26:26.079
Um, just catching the end there of the last podcaster and him talking about the microplastics in the uh in the in the river, and then how basically the the guy who came along to drill these boreholes was thinking, you know, he was saying, This is all the years of history right beneath our feet, and he's like a geezer, he's you know, he was just like completely just not fussed by it.
00:26:26.079 --> 00:26:36.160
And I was like writing it all down, like, oh my god, this is research material, and then you know, and then he's like at the end, um, but do you know what we're gonna be?
00:26:36.160 --> 00:26:41.440
We're gonna be a little layer, a little black layer, you know, at the end of that, of all that oil and plastic.
00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:47.119
It's just plastic, like melted down plastic layer that's gonna be, but you know, we'll carry on.
00:26:47.119 --> 00:26:54.240
And it was just interesting, like to to watch that layer and that connection to place and where I am at the moment come through.
00:26:54.240 --> 00:26:56.960
It's just like I've got a geography degree.
00:26:57.039 --> 00:26:57.119
Yeah.
00:26:57.119 --> 00:27:05.119
And I love like Lavostock ice cores and things like that, you know, where they drill out these ballholes and they bring out they they bring out these massive tubes so you can see every layer.
00:27:05.119 --> 00:27:09.359
So when they were drilling out, did it actually come out as like a big like sausage of earth?
00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:18.400
Yes, so it's like spilled, spilled, spilled like like um, so a lot of the sand and everything came out and it was bright orange because of all of the iron.
00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:18.960
Wow.
00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:21.759
So you're thinking about all of that iron-rich stuff.
00:27:21.759 --> 00:27:31.440
So my immediate like, I need to touch that in and then um so then we used that to create a massive um circle around the fire.
00:27:31.440 --> 00:27:42.640
So we created a fire pit, put all the sand there, moved that all there, but not immediately, but uh after a couple days, and then also um then up came the massive, it was like a plug almost of blue clay.
00:27:42.640 --> 00:27:46.079
So we have a plug of blue clay that we then used.
00:27:46.079 --> 00:27:53.359
Um Marley and I processed it, and actually, to be fair, it's kind of like the blue, the navy blue on the walls in here.
00:27:53.359 --> 00:28:11.759
That it's kind of like this yeah, dark navy navy blue grey, royal blue, royal blue, yeah, royal blue with a touch of grey, it's kind of like a short slatey kind of colour, and then we processed it and then painted it on the wall as part of an exhibition at Cuckoo Farm Studios on natural processes.
00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:16.960
So it's amazing to get like all these colours, like a really deep royal blue, like bright orange, yeah, yeah.
00:28:16.960 --> 00:28:19.200
Oh, that's all under your feet and all under your feet.
00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:30.079
It was fascinating within within seconds, obviously, and that's years and years and years, thousands of years of like stored, yeah, stored um mineral and energy, and and yeah, to see it all come up.
00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:36.720
And so then we were sat outside, and then we just Zeki decided it was a hot day, it was like June.
00:28:36.720 --> 00:28:42.799
Uh, put some in in a bowl, and then he's just like rubbing it all over himself, and he covered himself basically.
00:28:42.799 --> 00:28:44.319
We've got some amazing pictures of him.
00:28:44.480 --> 00:28:46.880
What's really good though, it makes him invisible to the predator.
00:28:47.039 --> 00:28:48.319
Yeah, exactly.
00:28:48.319 --> 00:28:53.279
People pay a lot of money for that, like you know I'm going to go and have a mud bar, yeah.
00:28:53.279 --> 00:28:57.599
You know, or like all these rituals that be like, for the farm.
00:28:59.200 --> 00:29:04.079
You want to be careful though, if you stand out in the sun, you'll just go hard and you'd be like stuck in this clay clay thing.
00:29:04.079 --> 00:29:06.160
It'd be weird, you'd be like an Anthony Gormley.
00:29:07.039 --> 00:29:07.680
Yeah, exactly.
00:29:07.680 --> 00:29:10.079
The Anthony Gormley of Suffolk, we can make that habit.
00:29:10.079 --> 00:29:11.119
Toddlers.
00:29:11.119 --> 00:29:23.599
Um, yeah, but it was really, really amazing just to watch that process and to watch um, you know, an 18-month year old at the time it was like just a year like playing with it, and actually it was completely safe and just knowing that all those minerals are going in.
00:29:23.599 --> 00:29:32.640
Yeah, it was really beautiful, and then so we both both Miley and I both took a bit of that clay, and um, yeah, I've got a bit to kind of maybe process at some point.
00:29:32.640 --> 00:29:35.200
Don't know what I'm gonna do with it just yet, but amazing.
00:29:35.839 --> 00:29:36.799
How big's the borehole?
00:29:36.799 --> 00:29:37.359
How wide is it?
00:29:37.359 --> 00:29:38.160
What's the diameter?
00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:43.359
Um whatever that is, like and we need Kathleen here to measure it.
00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:48.319
About six inches um 15 centimetres.
00:29:48.640 --> 00:29:48.960
Yeah.
00:29:49.200 --> 00:29:52.559
That's crazy that so much stuff can come out just from like a hole that small.
00:29:52.720 --> 00:29:53.599
Yep, yeah.
00:29:53.920 --> 00:29:54.640
I want to see it.
00:29:54.640 --> 00:29:55.279
I want to see this now.
00:29:55.680 --> 00:29:56.799
Thing is, it's not that amazing.
00:29:56.799 --> 00:29:57.680
It's not that amazing.
00:29:57.680 --> 00:29:59.519
People are like, oh, can we come see the borehouse?
00:29:59.519 --> 00:30:02.079
It's literally like like a hole.
00:30:02.079 --> 00:30:04.000
Like you just like you can't see anything.
00:30:04.240 --> 00:30:10.240
But it's the stuff how you explain it that came out of it that is like, well, what do you mean fish bones?
00:30:10.240 --> 00:30:12.160
Sangate, it's boring.
00:30:13.200 --> 00:30:14.880
No, no, sangate it, it's boring.
00:30:15.119 --> 00:30:15.440
Really?
00:30:15.680 --> 00:30:16.160
It's boring.
00:30:16.160 --> 00:30:17.440
That's why they make a borehouse.
00:30:19.200 --> 00:30:19.920
Sorry, that's terrible.
00:30:19.920 --> 00:30:20.640
So good.
00:30:20.640 --> 00:30:21.680
So good.
00:30:25.680 --> 00:30:30.480
So we had um we had Emma who's uh in charge of the Essex Witch Museum in there.
00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:44.319
And it's really interesting because you think like back in the days, people were getting persecuted for like using the land for for medicine, you know, like these cunning folk and like the witches were the people that would actually go out foraging and like finding herbs and things like that as well.
00:30:44.319 --> 00:30:49.279
So it's mad that like the connection to land in that ethnobot ethnobotany.
00:30:49.279 --> 00:30:50.559
How many times can I say it today?
00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:56.400
Ethnobotany, you know, like and people who sort of forgot about the craft a lot, did they?
00:30:56.400 --> 00:30:56.960
I don't know.
00:30:56.960 --> 00:30:57.279
Yeah.
00:30:57.279 --> 00:30:58.720
Was I just rambling?
00:30:58.880 --> 00:31:05.359
No, but this is where I always want to come in, and and people always just say, Yeah, uh, you know, witches were persecuted for being out on the land.
00:31:05.359 --> 00:31:10.480
I I think that is such a narrow perspective on actually what was going on.
00:31:10.480 --> 00:31:16.720
If we look at the history, it's the feudal system was being replaced by capitalism.
00:31:16.720 --> 00:31:30.799
Yeah, and in that time, that's when all of those um, you know, so persecute people on the land, remove those people from the land, and in and when land became asset, when land became a capital to be bought and sold.
00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:39.200
Prior to that, land wasn't something that was that was sold or bought in that way, and um and that's what makes it really, really interesting.
00:31:39.759 --> 00:31:41.599
So it says stop living off the land.
00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:42.799
Yep, stop finding it.
00:31:42.799 --> 00:31:43.839
I'm gonna make you pay for it.
00:31:43.839 --> 00:31:44.960
It was got you know you're not.
00:31:47.519 --> 00:31:48.480
Get off my hawthorn.
00:31:48.799 --> 00:31:49.759
Exactly, exactly.
00:31:49.759 --> 00:31:51.359
No, not get off my hawthorn.
00:31:51.359 --> 00:32:04.720
The reason why hawthorn has been, you know, sorry, this is like the geeky part, but it's so important is that the hawthorn is the most common shrub or plant or tree that you see in the UK.
00:32:04.720 --> 00:32:11.039
And the reason for that is because that it was planted as a row to keep people off.
00:32:11.039 --> 00:32:15.359
So it's basically the first living fence, and that's why you see it so commonly.
00:32:15.359 --> 00:32:19.200
It's spiky, it's spiky, it's got hawthorn, it will keep you out of the land.
00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:22.880
But the leaves are full of vitamins, yes, so you can eat them as you go, you know.
00:32:22.880 --> 00:32:29.359
We'll nourish you, but we might stab you also like you know, and I think that yeah, so it's really interesting.
00:32:29.359 --> 00:32:51.039
It was a way to keep people off the land, but you know, and uh it's a very prolific also way to regain uh power as well back from that relationship, you know, going and taking three hawthorn berries or three whore berries is kind of like saying, you know, up yours, up yours landowners, up yours, landowners.
00:32:51.039 --> 00:32:51.920
I'm you know still.
00:32:51.920 --> 00:32:55.440
I'm still having a bit because I can and I know what it is.
00:32:55.440 --> 00:32:56.720
Yeah, and you don't.
00:32:56.720 --> 00:32:57.759
Then maybe you do.
00:32:58.240 --> 00:33:04.559
Do people, you know, if if you're out um foraging and stuff, do people still like look at you like you're maybe like a bit weird or something?
00:33:04.559 --> 00:33:06.400
Or um is everyone just fascinated?
00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:24.000
Yeah, yeah, it always depends on the you know, I haven't really had lots and lots and lots of you know negative comments, but a couple of them did come from the Homelanders Parent Presence book when we were gathering um stories and recipes for that, and going out as a big group of women.
00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:36.000
You know, sometimes we were 20 women, all from different backgrounds, and you know, and at that point you'd often find men maybe approaching us and being like, you know, what are you doing?
00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:39.200
You know, because we'd be seen to be a bit, yeah.
00:33:39.200 --> 00:33:42.160
What the landowners were not landowners, just fellows.
00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:43.440
I've had that before.
00:33:43.440 --> 00:33:46.880
When I've been even picking Blackberries, people are like, Oh you know, you can buy them in Tesco.
00:33:47.279 --> 00:33:47.680
Really?
00:33:47.839 --> 00:33:48.319
Yeah.
00:33:50.799 --> 00:33:52.559
Well, why would I want to do that if they're free here?
00:33:53.119 --> 00:33:54.960
I've got a massive bowl here for free.
00:33:55.200 --> 00:33:56.240
Yeah, it's bunkers.
00:33:56.240 --> 00:33:57.680
Oh, yeah.
00:33:57.680 --> 00:34:00.480
But yeah, so yeah, it's not it's not been so bad.
00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:07.519
And I think you know, always have an a chat and try and educate them around certain things, but you know, sometimes not if I don't fancy it.
00:34:07.680 --> 00:34:11.280
Okay, yeah, you know, sometimes it can be hard work, yeah.
00:34:11.360 --> 00:34:15.039
Exactly, and it's not always not always alright to stop and have a chat.
00:34:15.039 --> 00:34:17.119
But yeah, usually it's alright.
00:34:17.360 --> 00:34:19.280
Usually people are quite cool.
00:34:19.280 --> 00:34:23.280
I think loads of people are just fascinated, they just don't know about stuff.
00:34:23.280 --> 00:34:28.400
Like my my wife's constantly trying to get my kids to learn what the trees are, and she'll say, What's that?
00:34:28.400 --> 00:34:30.559
and they'll still just say a tree.
00:34:30.559 --> 00:34:32.000
She'll be so annoyed.
00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:35.039
She said, I knew all the trees when I was younger.
00:34:35.280 --> 00:34:36.719
Wow, yeah, it's so important.
00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:39.599
I don't think a lot of kids don't know the trees or anything.
00:34:39.920 --> 00:34:45.679
You know, there's that um there's like a little meme that that's gone around and it shows you all the different logos.
00:34:45.679 --> 00:34:51.760
So you've got like Lacoste logo, yeah, uh, don't know, all these different clothing logos, goochie done and that.
00:34:51.760 --> 00:34:57.920
And it's like how many without the wording underneath it, how many of these, bearing in mind, Lacoste is like a what is it, a crocodile?
00:34:57.920 --> 00:34:59.440
So how many can you recognise?
00:34:59.440 --> 00:35:00.800
How many of these can you recognise?
00:35:00.800 --> 00:35:03.840
And everyone's like, oh my god, I can see I ran, I know all of those.
00:35:03.840 --> 00:35:10.239
But then the other one is just like, you know, can you recognise a sycamore, oak, and an ash?
00:35:10.239 --> 00:35:14.639
And you know, and for me, I'm just like, yes, yes, yes, I was totally winning.
00:35:14.639 --> 00:35:15.599
Yeah, totally winning.
00:35:15.599 --> 00:35:21.119
But then the other side is that, and unfortunately, that is that's the feudal over the capital.
00:35:21.119 --> 00:35:24.800
That is that is essentially how it has changed our brain chemistry.
00:35:24.960 --> 00:35:25.920
Could you recognise Lacosto?
00:35:25.920 --> 00:35:26.639
That's the important.
00:35:26.960 --> 00:35:27.599
Hell yeah.
00:35:27.599 --> 00:35:31.360
Because I really wanted a lacrosse bag when I was 16.
00:35:31.360 --> 00:35:33.119
Yeah, and I got it.
00:35:33.920 --> 00:35:34.239
Nice.
00:35:34.239 --> 00:35:36.639
Yeah, you didn't want a bag with an oak tree leaf on it, did you?
00:35:36.880 --> 00:35:37.360
Definitely not.
00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:38.239
But then there now is.
00:35:38.239 --> 00:35:38.960
Conservatives.
00:35:39.119 --> 00:35:40.880
Conservatives were in the oak the oak.
00:35:41.199 --> 00:35:43.039
I wanted a mulberry handbag, please.
00:35:43.039 --> 00:35:47.519
You know, it was all these brands, you know, that people want that are actually Osprey, is another one, you know.
00:35:47.679 --> 00:35:49.360
Oh, is it a bird?
00:35:49.360 --> 00:35:49.599
Really?
00:35:49.599 --> 00:35:50.960
I know no, but I don't know about the brand.
00:35:51.119 --> 00:35:52.480
Oh, it's like a sports sports brand.
00:35:52.639 --> 00:35:54.320
I know Will Ospreay, the wrestler from Essex.
00:35:54.559 --> 00:35:54.880
There you go.
00:35:54.880 --> 00:35:56.000
Don't know him.
00:35:56.239 --> 00:35:57.199
He's amazing.
00:35:57.440 --> 00:35:58.000
Yeah, no.
00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:00.960
I don't know, I don't know him, but yeah, Ospreay's like back backpacks and stuff.
00:36:01.360 --> 00:36:05.039
You don't know me, you don't know the aerial assassin, Will Ospreay from AEW.
00:36:05.039 --> 00:36:05.920
He's the absolute Don.
00:36:05.920 --> 00:36:06.719
No, sorry.
00:36:06.719 --> 00:36:08.239
Headline Wembley Stadium.
00:36:08.480 --> 00:36:10.159
Not my culture, I don't know.
00:36:10.159 --> 00:36:11.199
He's good.
00:36:11.519 --> 00:36:13.920
His finishing movie's called Cheeky Nando's.
00:36:13.920 --> 00:36:15.199
She's a good wrestler.
00:36:15.199 --> 00:36:21.440
I want to talk about the Saffron Trail.
00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:22.639
Because this is really interesting.
00:36:22.639 --> 00:36:24.480
I'd never heard of the Saffron Trail before.
00:36:24.480 --> 00:36:25.920
And this is like your new art project.
00:36:26.159 --> 00:36:26.800
Yes.
00:36:27.360 --> 00:36:28.800
What is the Saffron Trail?
00:36:29.119 --> 00:36:30.639
Saffron Trail already exists.
00:36:30.639 --> 00:36:39.119
It's a 70-mile trail across Essex from South End all the way up to Saffron Walden, or from Saffron Walden all the way to South End, depends on which way you want.
00:36:39.360 --> 00:36:39.599
And what?
00:36:39.599 --> 00:36:41.519
People were carrying Saffron.
00:36:41.920 --> 00:36:42.880
No, I'd love that.
00:36:42.880 --> 00:36:43.280
I'd love that.
00:36:43.519 --> 00:36:45.519
No, I know, but is that why it was called the Saffron Trail?
00:36:45.679 --> 00:36:47.440
No, do you want to know really why it's called that?
00:36:47.440 --> 00:37:01.840
Because some guy in like 2001 decided that he wanted to create a route uh north to south or south to north um across Essex because the Essex Way goes east to west.
00:37:01.840 --> 00:37:02.239
Yeah.
00:37:02.239 --> 00:37:06.000
So it's like it's it was just to it was just to do that.
00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:07.119
And just another direction.
00:37:07.119 --> 00:37:08.159
Just another direction.
00:37:08.159 --> 00:37:10.800
So it makes like a cardinal cross on the map.
00:37:10.800 --> 00:37:11.679
Like that's it.
00:37:11.679 --> 00:37:20.159
However, yeah, for me, it was um back in 2021, I was part of it all happened in Champsford, so it all started in Champsford.
00:37:20.159 --> 00:37:29.840
I was part of the Ignite um like this Ignite Ideas lab where they got some funding from the EU and they were like, get back to the city centre post-COVID.
00:37:29.840 --> 00:37:31.440
Because that was a big thing, right?
00:37:31.440 --> 00:37:33.119
Getting people back into city centres.
00:37:33.119 --> 00:37:37.119
Everyone was like, the shops are gonna die, everything, no one wants to go back outside.
00:37:37.119 --> 00:37:49.360
So they were you know, it was this big consortium sort of thing between all these different kinds of people, cross-section of people, artists, planners, architects, business owners, but thinking about ways in which to get people back into city centre.
00:37:49.360 --> 00:37:51.760
And for me, I've been doing a lot of walking.
00:37:51.760 --> 00:38:01.360
Um, my mum had died in 2019, COVID came just be after that, and I'd spent a couple of weeks walking.
00:38:01.360 --> 00:38:05.760
Um and I did the Pilgrims Way, did the Essex Way.
00:38:05.760 --> 00:38:09.679
I just went out, it was the only thing that I could do during lockdown.
00:38:09.679 --> 00:38:13.760
I just took myself out four or five days at a time, just went.
00:38:13.760 --> 00:38:19.039
And um, there's something super cathartic about just going out.
00:38:19.119 --> 00:38:22.320
It was really Were you were you sleeping rough as well, like when you're on the Essex Way?
00:38:22.320 --> 00:38:24.320
Yeah, so when you take a tent with you, yeah.
00:38:24.320 --> 00:38:24.960
Oh, I love that.
00:38:25.039 --> 00:38:32.320
Yeah, washing a church, by the way, because it was it was COVID, so you couldn't there was like you know, it wasn't a thing.
00:38:32.320 --> 00:38:34.480
Going into a restaurant wasn't a thing.
00:38:34.960 --> 00:38:45.519
So it was like wild camping, um, and which technically, you know, you can't do, but well you could do if you stayed in your tent for 23 hours a day.
00:38:45.760 --> 00:38:46.639
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:38:46.639 --> 00:38:48.159
No, I didn't.
00:38:48.159 --> 00:38:51.519
It was just you know, we were wild camping irresponsibly.
00:38:51.760 --> 00:38:59.360
Um what I seem interesting because I was following Man About Country and he did his brilliant culture esse project where he walked the Essex way.
00:38:59.360 --> 00:38:59.599
Yeah.
00:38:59.599 --> 00:39:01.440
Now he did that for like two weeks or something.
00:39:01.440 --> 00:39:03.280
Did you do the whole thing in five days?
00:39:03.519 --> 00:39:04.880
Uh which the Saffron Trail?
00:39:04.880 --> 00:39:05.199
I did it.
00:39:05.199 --> 00:39:06.239
No, no, the Essex Way.
00:39:06.239 --> 00:39:08.159
Essex Day did it four or five.
00:39:08.559 --> 00:39:09.679
Oh wow, I really want to do that.
00:39:09.679 --> 00:39:10.239
It looks fascinating.
00:39:10.239 --> 00:39:10.960
Yeah, it's great.
00:39:11.199 --> 00:39:13.440
Epinforest, yeah, to Harricht.
00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:17.280
And then you did the Saffron Trail as well, and that gave you the idea for this project.
00:39:17.519 --> 00:39:45.440
No, so the get back to the city centre basically was this thing, and and I was kind we kind of ideated some ideas in on our table, and it was all about I was saying, you know, what happens if you just yeah, that was track back backtracking that story is because I'd just done all that walking and you know, and I was so passionate about the time, it's like we could walk into town because if you live on the periphery, you could just walk into town, leave your cars at home, and then grab a coffee on the way in, do your shopping.
00:39:45.440 --> 00:39:47.199
From one of 28 customers, yeah, exactly.
00:39:47.199 --> 00:39:48.000
Hilarious.
00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:51.440
Other independent alternatives are a favorite.
00:39:51.840 --> 00:39:54.719
Um, make your own if you're with Laura.
00:39:54.719 --> 00:39:55.519
Yeah, exactly.
00:39:55.679 --> 00:39:58.000
We can make it out of nettle seeds.
00:39:58.480 --> 00:40:02.480
Um we just need a dummy nest cafe, we've got nettle seeds.
00:40:02.639 --> 00:40:03.840
Exactly, that's what I'm about.
00:40:03.840 --> 00:40:06.400
Antifetamine and quantum nest nestle cafe.
00:40:06.800 --> 00:40:07.280
Nettle cafe.
00:40:07.280 --> 00:40:10.480
Oh god, no sting you there, don't worry.
00:40:12.079 --> 00:40:14.159
Sting you for your money, exactly.
00:40:14.159 --> 00:40:22.559
Um, but yeah, and so we were um yeah, chatting about that and then was given the opportunity to kind of take the idea a little bit further.
00:40:22.559 --> 00:40:30.480
So I spent two days just going out, had I did a little recce and landed at Pin, no, Paper Mill Lock.
00:40:30.719 --> 00:40:31.679
Amazing, great cakes.
00:40:31.840 --> 00:40:36.800
Yeah, I was walking along that that route, basically, where um just where is it?
00:40:36.800 --> 00:40:38.639
What's that museum?
00:40:38.800 --> 00:40:40.239
The Museum of Power.
00:40:44.079 --> 00:40:45.119
Samford Mill.
00:40:45.119 --> 00:40:46.960
Oh yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:40:47.119 --> 00:40:47.679
Great, fantastic.
00:40:47.679 --> 00:40:49.360
Yeah, I was very dystopian.
00:40:49.360 --> 00:40:51.920
Looks like a looks like an apocalyptic zombie hideout.
00:40:52.480 --> 00:40:52.800
Exactly.
00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:54.400
So that's where I parked my car.
00:40:54.400 --> 00:40:59.280
And I and I got out and I was started walking along the little the waterfront there.
00:40:59.280 --> 00:41:08.800
And just as I got out of the car, walked literally about two minutes onto this onto this trail, and not even trail, I didn't even know it was a trail, footpath.
00:41:08.800 --> 00:41:12.480
And I looked out, and there was this like emblem.
00:41:12.480 --> 00:41:17.119
You know, you get the little emblem when you're out walking, and it was of a saffron focus.
00:41:17.119 --> 00:41:21.840
Oh, a trail marker, a trail marker, thank you, and it said the saffron way.
00:41:21.840 --> 00:41:22.159
Wow.
00:41:22.159 --> 00:41:24.000
And I was like, Saffron?
00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:24.800
Who this?
00:41:24.800 --> 00:41:27.039
Like, what are you doing here?
00:41:27.039 --> 00:41:29.280
Like, so I was very intrigued.
00:41:29.280 --> 00:41:38.719
So I like was kind of like had this like excitement, walked all the way, you know, then walked into city centre, and then was gonna get the the bus back to get the car.
00:41:38.719 --> 00:41:51.760
And just at that point, I was just thinking, like, I couldn't stop thinking, why is there saffron here in front of this old, you know, ball-bearing or whatever it is, like museum.
00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:54.320
And I couldn't, I couldn't stop thinking about that.
00:41:54.320 --> 00:41:57.360
And that's basically and it and that's where it started.
00:41:57.360 --> 00:42:06.320
So kept the idea there, and saffron for me is this plant of like of of not from Essex, it's not here.
00:42:06.320 --> 00:42:07.760
So I was like intrigued.
00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:10.079
Oh, well, here's something interesting I found out on the internet.
00:42:10.079 --> 00:42:10.880
Go for it.
00:42:10.880 --> 00:42:13.840
Because I love etymology, I can't say it, but I love it.
00:42:14.079 --> 00:42:15.519
You can just did.
00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:21.280
Um you know where place names come from, you know, like when you see stoke, it means like in the woods and things like that.
00:42:21.280 --> 00:42:26.000
So I was like, oh, I didn't even think about Saffron Walden, that Saffron was about Saffron.
00:42:26.000 --> 00:42:26.480
Yep.
00:42:26.480 --> 00:42:31.599
And Walden means Foreigner's Valley, apparently.
00:42:31.599 --> 00:42:35.039
Oh in old Yeodi language, foreigner's valley.
00:42:35.199 --> 00:42:38.159
And I was just thinking, like, wow, in Saffron Foreigner's Valley.
00:42:38.400 --> 00:42:44.800
Yeah, so in in medieval times, I mean saffron is really expensive now anyway, but back then it was murder expensive.
00:42:44.800 --> 00:42:49.280
It must have been so exotic to have saffron in Essex.
00:42:49.280 --> 00:42:50.800
Absolutely, it's crazy.
00:42:51.039 --> 00:42:54.719
Yeah, so um Saffron Walden, right?
00:42:54.719 --> 00:43:03.440
The other side of or where the trail ends or begins, however you do it, used to be called Chapnan Walden, not Saffron Walden.
00:43:03.440 --> 00:43:05.199
So what's the etymony of Chapnan?
00:43:05.199 --> 00:43:08.719
I don't know, C-H-E-Y-P-E N or something like that.
00:43:08.719 --> 00:43:33.840
And um they they were growing saffron in the 13th, 14th, maybe late 13th, so 14th, 15th century in that area, and apparently, you know, how it got here is the whole story of it came in a pilgrim's boot or you know, there's all these stories as to how it arrived here, but I'm like, hmm, a pilgrim's boot, that's a very beautiful romantic story.
00:43:33.840 --> 00:43:39.039
I don't know if my recollection of British history is that good.
00:43:39.039 --> 00:43:40.079
Is romantic?
00:43:40.079 --> 00:43:45.199
So you know, I'm I'm intrigued, still, still still figuring that one out.
00:43:45.199 --> 00:43:49.679
But it could be it could have been traded, it could have been pillaged, it could have been, you know, who knows?
00:43:49.679 --> 00:43:54.000
So how it got here is part of the research that I would like to undertake as part of this project.
00:43:54.559 --> 00:43:56.960
Especially, I suppose because we had so much wall trade and things like that.
00:43:56.960 --> 00:43:58.000
There's a lot of trade.
00:43:58.480 --> 00:44:16.880
So the the the It was grown and cultivated in Saffron Molden, and it was up until you know it was it became such a thing for that area that they decided that they were gonna change the name because apparently you could smell it as you were entering, you know, from the villages and surrounding entries.
00:44:16.880 --> 00:44:28.079
You could smell the saffron so much that they decided to call it um Saffron Molden, and the Queen came to Saffron Molden and then re-uh renamed Jedder Bath in Saffron.
00:44:28.079 --> 00:44:30.159
I'd love to pouring saffron all over.
00:44:30.159 --> 00:44:38.000
Nowadays there is a couple of growers in Essex, and I think there's a growing in Suffolk, people still growing it.
00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:39.360
You can grow saffron in England.
00:44:39.360 --> 00:44:40.800
Bibba grows saffron.
00:44:41.039 --> 00:44:52.639
This has blown my mind a little bit because I thought saffron was like some mega exotic thing that had to be grown in a different country, like somewhere really hot and dry, and then they'd bring sacks of it over here and they'd be like, oh, the weight is worth more than gold.
00:44:53.119 --> 00:44:56.239
Yes, yeah, which it is, it still is being traded like that.
00:44:56.239 --> 00:45:04.320
But the the interesting thing around climate change and climate is that the people that are growing this saffron that you think of.
00:45:04.320 --> 00:45:39.679
So if you shut your eyes right now and you think of saffron growing, exoticism, those far-off places where it's dry, those places are currently facing severe drought, you know, in the mountainous regions, and those people who are growing those plants are having to seek work elsewhere, having to seek work in cities because they can't grow their their life, they you know that ancestral connection to a plant can't be continued because of our consumption of resources.
00:45:39.679 --> 00:45:46.239
And I think it's so interesting to to kind of watch that whole thing unfold and just know that okay, so that's climate, yeah.
00:45:46.239 --> 00:45:47.519
It's climate in action, yeah.
00:45:47.679 --> 00:45:52.320
Yeah, and I suppose you know, even now, like we're starting to grow, you know, the vineyards are really popping up around Essex as well.
00:45:52.320 --> 00:45:57.280
So it might end up being called Pinot Grigio Walden in the future.
00:45:58.960 --> 00:46:09.360
Um we're laughing, but but it could be the climate of is predicted to be, you know, the France of you know, we're growing a lot of German grapes in Essex at the moment.
00:46:09.360 --> 00:46:19.440
So because of yeah, German, German wine is doing quite well, German variety of grapes are doing well, but yeah, it's like southwest, which is like champagne, is gonna be the Champagne region.
00:46:19.440 --> 00:46:20.159
Oh, yeah.
00:46:20.159 --> 00:46:22.159
Like where my sister lives, yeah, like Hampshire.
00:46:22.159 --> 00:46:24.320
It's chalky, chalky ground.
00:46:24.320 --> 00:46:37.599
So that's like you wouldn't have to dig super super low to get those fish bones, it will be you know, it's like that stratification of the soil that we're talking about earlier that will give you a different quality of grape and how it really how it's gonna live in that soil.
00:46:37.599 --> 00:46:39.760
Here it's clayy, so we're German.
00:46:39.760 --> 00:46:40.880
Yeah, oh that's crazy.
00:46:40.880 --> 00:46:41.440
That is crazy.
00:46:41.440 --> 00:46:43.039
But I think isn't that interesting?
00:46:43.119 --> 00:46:45.920
Just a shot and just Germany.
00:46:45.920 --> 00:46:46.800
So von Walden.
00:46:46.800 --> 00:46:50.320
Libralmilch Walden.
00:46:51.039 --> 00:46:53.039
Pinot Walden, I love it.
00:46:53.360 --> 00:46:57.280
It's amazing though, just like a shift of a couple of degrees, you know, in temperature.
00:46:57.280 --> 00:46:57.519
Yeah.
00:46:57.519 --> 00:46:58.559
Has just done that.
00:46:58.559 --> 00:47:04.000
And obviously, like if you if you look at England, you know, you can join it up with Europe, you can see where it broke away.
00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:08.320
So, like, like that same soil just runs through, the same the same bedrock runs through.
00:47:08.320 --> 00:47:17.440
And um, I mean Essex apparently is just gonna be like amazing for wine, like but the thing is, is like I don't know about this.
00:47:17.679 --> 00:47:27.119
Coffee is a great example, like coffee culture, and now you've got that whole like hipster coffee vibe, and then you've got matcha coming in from like ancient traditions of Japanese.
00:47:27.119 --> 00:47:30.800
Do you know how matcha is even grown?
00:47:30.800 --> 00:47:38.000
No, no, it's bonkers, like the art form, the the artisan level of making matcha.
00:47:38.000 --> 00:48:10.800
So they plant this, it's basically green tea leaves, and they are grown um uh under like uh so green black tea is like fermented and and green tea is is not, and it's just kind of the way in which it's grown, and they cover it with like these special um sheets, special, they would have used a black, they use black plastic nowadays, but they used to use different forms of like uh ways to cover the plant, and and then they they pick it only when it's uh at its prime in this prime vitality, you know.
00:48:10.800 --> 00:48:22.400
It's really, really like this process, the process is really fascinating, and it is one that requires patience and time and attention, it's not something that you can do super fast.
00:48:22.800 --> 00:48:24.800
Um that's not coming to Essex.
00:48:25.280 --> 00:48:25.840
Matchup.
00:48:25.840 --> 00:48:41.840
No, but it's just like one of those things where you're just kind of like, this is a takeover of a culture, yeah, and the whole, the whole, so you know, the cut the whole culture of that plant and that lifestyle is just all of a sudden being served in one of 28 quaestas or charter.
00:48:41.840 --> 00:48:44.960
And you're like, and they're doing it in the machine, they're just like matchup lanes.
00:48:44.960 --> 00:48:45.920
Oh, what's your name?
00:48:45.920 --> 00:48:50.719
I'll write it on there, and then you're just like, my name's Aziz or something, they'll be like, What did you say, Alan?
00:48:50.719 --> 00:48:54.559
And it's like, you know, so I think it's really Laura Allen.
00:48:54.559 --> 00:49:04.400
I don't know, it's just thinking about you know the culture of these plants and actually how long it takes to build a relationship with it and the whole history around it.
00:49:04.639 --> 00:49:09.679
And I suppose, you know, agriculturally, it's hard to scale it up that quickly, you know.
00:49:09.679 --> 00:49:15.039
So it uh are some people um some people being priced out of matcha now because we're obsessed with matcha.
00:49:15.280 --> 00:49:15.840
Hell yeah.
00:49:15.840 --> 00:49:18.480
Same with cacao, and I think it's really interesting.
00:49:18.480 --> 00:49:29.360
But what what for me is so important in my work and what I want to continue for the future is like, how long does it take to build a culture around agriculture, right?
00:49:29.360 --> 00:49:32.079
Like this a long, long, long time.
00:49:32.079 --> 00:49:34.480
You know, here we're talking about apples.
00:49:34.480 --> 00:49:40.400
This is Apple Land, you know, yeah, there's gonna be no apples left, and all of a sudden, people of England are gonna start talking about wine.
00:49:40.400 --> 00:49:41.519
They don't know anything about wine.
00:49:41.519 --> 00:49:42.639
I'm not being rude, yeah.
00:49:42.639 --> 00:49:48.480
You know, it's like I can have a Merlot, but at the end of the day, you know, if you go to France, you're like, Can I have a Beaujolais?
00:49:48.480 --> 00:49:50.960
They'll be like, sorry, we don't do Beaujolais actually.
00:49:50.960 --> 00:50:02.400
We have a this and this, and it's like this heart, all of a sudden, we're trying to learn a new culture, yeah, really, really, really fast because it's fashionable and it's being like marketed.
00:50:02.400 --> 00:50:04.159
And for me, that's super interesting.
00:50:04.159 --> 00:50:28.800
So it a part of my work is like looking at how we can make these cultures accessible, but also looking at what's already here and how to kind of relate to it in the interplay, and then also we're talking about saffron, and all of a sudden it's relevant for my people, it's relevant for us, it's relevant for people that understand what saffron is and the culture is how do you use one thread of saffron in your food to turn your rice yellow?
00:50:28.800 --> 00:51:06.639
Yeah, and you know, and it's kind of those kind of things, and and and and that is an art that is taught intergenerationally, it's something that is that's passed down, it's something that's learned in relationship to the land, it's something that gives a pigment, it's something that that is that's cherished and has a place within a context, in a history, in a culture of a land, and all of a sudden, you know, we've got a new culture to learn about, a new culture to sell, and then that's when it becomes really complicated, when all of a sudden people need to learn about wine really, really, really quickly because they need to be vineyard specialists and you know how can we learn about grapes?
00:51:06.639 --> 00:51:33.840
How can this is what's going through my mind, and I'm not being rude, I'm just trying to like figure out within the speed of it how is the average apple farmer all of a sudden gonna learn about grapes and become a connoisseur of that of that plant in the same time that it's taken to like 30 generations of one family to teach that, and then the culture, the songs, the folklore, the music, yeah, everything that comes with that.
00:51:37.519 --> 00:51:50.719
Yeah, this is really interesting because I was I was working with apple growers um with when I was working on a cider brand, and the um the guy that owned the orchard said, you know, brewers get to make a beer every every week if they want, right?
00:51:50.719 --> 00:51:55.840
Apple growers probably you're probably only gonna get 30 or 35 harvests in your whole career.
00:51:55.840 --> 00:51:56.400
Wow.
00:51:56.400 --> 00:51:56.960
Right?
00:51:56.960 --> 00:52:01.039
Because you know, you you know, when you gotta wait for the apples to grow.
00:52:01.039 --> 00:52:01.280
Yeah.
00:52:01.280 --> 00:52:04.559
So you know, it's a bit of trial and error, and you can't learn that fast.
00:52:04.559 --> 00:52:04.719
Yeah.
00:52:04.719 --> 00:52:10.079
Because you've got to wait a year, see what happens, learn from it, you know, and do it all again.
00:52:10.079 --> 00:52:11.119
Next year, prune.
00:52:11.119 --> 00:52:17.280
Yeah, and he said, Well, you know, it's quite a relaxed way of life, really, because you can't hurry anything.
00:52:17.280 --> 00:52:18.480
That's the good point.
00:52:18.719 --> 00:52:24.239
You can't learn it that quickly, and I suppose it'd be the same with grapes, yeah, or or or you know, or matcha if we're gonna go that far.
00:52:24.320 --> 00:52:28.960
But it's like we growing matcha in Essex, Essex matcha, come on, yeah.
00:52:29.039 --> 00:52:36.000
I don't know, it's that it's that level of like, you know, what are we gonna do when we have to re-configure?
00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:40.000
And you know, that that exchange of knowledge is really important.
00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:42.320
But for me, so creativity, right?
00:52:42.320 --> 00:52:53.679
Culture, art, if we had to think about, you know, all of those pictures or in in the gallery that you were talking about, or the national gallery, all the bangers, all the bangers.
00:52:53.679 --> 00:52:58.000
They weren't there sitting, you know, pouring wine pictures, were they?
00:52:58.000 --> 00:53:03.119
No, they were drinking ale or they were drinking all sorts of things, and we've always had that exchange of plums.
00:53:03.119 --> 00:53:10.320
Imagine he was eating an apple because he was stuck and he was like, Oh my god, just gotta go forage an apple, you know, gotta go eat a hawthorn or eat an allberry.
00:53:10.559 --> 00:53:12.400
Oi, Wayne, chuck us a crab apple.
00:53:12.639 --> 00:53:16.639
Hey, Wayne, give us an apple, yeah.
00:53:16.639 --> 00:53:19.119
And now it's like, Oi, Wayne, give me a grape.
00:53:19.119 --> 00:53:21.360
You know, it's like it doesn't have it doesn't hit the same.
00:53:21.360 --> 00:53:21.840
I don't know.
00:53:21.840 --> 00:53:54.880
So for that, that exchange of culture is what's interesting to me, and how the overlays of you know, new folk music, new folk art, you know, not in a way that I try and like maybe spell folk with a cue, just it's that queerness around folk, like in in in all the senses, in terms of like that new generation of what it means to be from a land and have be constantly in dialogue with it whilst it's changing, whilst we're changing as a people, whilst we're creating a new generation of people.
00:53:54.880 --> 00:54:02.079
Like my son is like four nationalities, and he's growing up foraging from one land, it's changing.
00:54:02.079 --> 00:54:12.480
And I think that that is that's just where where I'm heading and where my question in his head and where my art is going is thinking about that that that same layering of the land.
00:54:12.719 --> 00:54:16.320
Yeah, well, your son's gonna be more confused because he'd be like, Am I Essex or Suffolk?
00:54:18.239 --> 00:54:19.440
Tractor boy.
00:54:19.519 --> 00:54:21.760
Yeah, am I a tractor boy or a geyser?
00:54:22.239 --> 00:54:22.880
That's a good one.
00:54:23.119 --> 00:54:24.239
Am I a lemon squeezer?
00:54:25.199 --> 00:54:26.079
Literally.
00:54:30.559 --> 00:54:35.119
So how does the saffron trail, how does your art overlay with that?
00:54:35.119 --> 00:54:37.360
You know, your product you've got a big project next year.
00:54:37.519 --> 00:54:37.840
Yeah.
00:54:37.840 --> 00:54:44.000
Um, so yeah, it's looking at three different water sites primarily along that Saffron Trail, along those 70 miles.
00:54:44.400 --> 00:54:47.039
So a river crosses it quite a lot, goes through Chelmsford.
00:54:47.440 --> 00:55:09.280
Yeah, there's quite a few rivers, but it's also like there's chalk streams, there's springs, there's an estuary, there's um ponds, there's all these different kinds of water sites, and at the moment, just looking, starting to delve into what those sites are, what they look like, what they mean, um, and who inhabits them, who like human and non-human, you know, all of that kind of stuff.
00:55:09.280 --> 00:55:19.920
And then the idea is then to get commissions for artists to respond to those sites, but also to make improvements and enhancements to those areas.
00:55:19.920 --> 00:55:24.559
So that could be a bat box, it could be a bench, it could be a a theatre performance, you know.
00:55:24.639 --> 00:55:35.039
So and your ultimate goal of that as well is partly um extra accessibility for groups that don't often go into the countryside and for people to visit these areas that they wouldn't normally go to.
00:55:35.280 --> 00:55:38.000
Always, and that's why it's on a public footpath.
00:55:38.000 --> 00:55:48.480
I don't have to make some special route, it's a route that already exists, it's already there, parts of it are really urban, parts of it are accessible for that reason, but parts of it are super rural and you can't get there.
00:55:48.480 --> 00:55:52.400
But if it's marketed enough, maybe you might go and try it out.
00:55:52.400 --> 00:55:56.239
But for me, I want it to be like this route that people can walk across.
00:55:56.239 --> 00:55:58.880
Like, you know, you might do the Camino de Santiago.
00:55:58.880 --> 00:55:59.119
Yes.
00:55:59.119 --> 00:56:03.920
Let's go do the Saffron Trail, you know, and creating a place where it's like, you know.
00:56:05.039 --> 00:56:06.880
I love it when you have a walk with a purpose.
00:56:06.880 --> 00:56:15.440
And actually, like my wife's a landscape architect, and she and she she's always saying, you know, it's really nice when um, you know, in Holland, especially, you know, you get loads of little play spaces.
00:56:15.440 --> 00:56:19.280
You don't get one big playground, you get loads of little play spaces along a trail or something.
00:56:19.280 --> 00:56:22.239
And you know, it just makes you want to keep going, keep exploring more.
00:56:22.239 --> 00:56:29.119
Keep looking, yeah, and you know, and it and it's good because you know, as an adult, you're like, yeah, I can get the kids to walk a little bit further and stuff like that.
00:56:29.119 --> 00:56:34.559
But it's it's that discovery and that joy of you know, like finding things and and going on a little mission.
00:56:34.880 --> 00:56:35.360
Exactly.
00:56:35.360 --> 00:57:03.760
And you might get little stamps along the way, ideally, you know, like you get those pilgrim passports, but you could get like Saffron Trail booklet, and it might be that you've got in a taxi um using a taxi in Chelpsford that's run by a Mohammed, and you know, it was Mohammed's taxis, I don't know, and you'll get a stamp for using that, or you might be going to a restaurant somewhere and get a stamp for visiting the restaurant, or you might end up at Saffron Hall, which is a state-of-the-art of a music venue, and go and listen to some amazing music and get a stamp.
00:57:03.760 --> 00:57:17.679
So it's that kind of like, or visit the theatre show, and that whole thing is connecting the route, or you know, staying in in a hotel run by a local family, you know, and or visiting a pub or going to the cricketers along the route and all of that.
00:57:18.079 --> 00:57:24.159
One of my favourite things that I do in Essex, I I starts in Suffolk, but I did the Subway to see kayaking, right?
00:57:24.159 --> 00:57:26.719
Where you start in Subway and you kayak all the way down to Manning Tree.
00:57:26.719 --> 00:57:28.320
So cool, and it's so amazing.
00:57:28.320 --> 00:57:36.480
Like when you go through all the different landscapes, and there's little pubs along the way and stuff, and it's so fun, like stopping everywhere and then then the young farmers market in buers and stuff like that.
00:57:36.480 --> 00:57:46.000
But it's so nice to do something, there's a long route through through the landscape and it changes and seeing it change and change you at the same time.
00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:48.960
And also having such good laugh with your mates when you're doing it as well.
00:57:48.960 --> 00:57:52.719
But it's so nice to have just a destination in mind and just see what happens along the way.
00:57:52.719 --> 00:57:56.480
Yeah, and we saw so much amazing uh wildlife as well, it's brilliant.
00:57:56.719 --> 00:57:58.800
Slow travelling, we don't do that enough, you know.
00:57:58.800 --> 00:58:02.639
We go away, we go to all different sorts of countries, and we do all these kind of things.
00:58:02.639 --> 00:58:07.760
But when was the last time you actually spent that long migrating from place A to place B?
00:58:07.760 --> 00:58:08.800
It's quite hard to do.
00:58:08.800 --> 00:58:12.159
Yeah, it's quite hard to do because we're not used to doing that anymore.
00:58:12.159 --> 00:58:15.519
And actually, that's the only way we used to have to walk really far.
00:58:15.519 --> 00:58:18.239
We used to have to, you know, it's in our DNA.
00:58:18.559 --> 00:58:19.119
Yeah, yeah.
00:58:19.119 --> 00:58:21.360
Where am I gonna charge my phone?
00:58:23.199 --> 00:58:25.519
Already charging the way.
00:58:25.840 --> 00:58:26.880
Yeah, that's what you're gonna do.
00:58:26.880 --> 00:58:29.840
Map the 5G.
00:58:30.159 --> 00:58:44.400
Love that, but also yeah, it's how about we uh charging ourselves and refueling ourselves and taking a moment to kind of re rewire a little bit our own our own self before we can even yeah, don't I don't think we could be creative in any other way, really.
00:58:44.400 --> 00:58:45.280
It's uh yeah.
00:58:45.679 --> 00:58:50.880
I love that you were making ink.
00:58:50.880 --> 00:59:00.960
Yeah, were you making that from pitch, or was it what were you making your you were making inks from the land and then using them from c for calligraphy, which I think is amazing, like going back to these old school techniques.
00:59:01.199 --> 00:59:01.679
Yeah, yeah.
00:59:01.840 --> 00:59:02.880
How did you make your ink?
00:59:03.119 --> 00:59:06.639
Um oak go ink is a really easy one that I use.
00:59:06.639 --> 00:59:28.960
Um yeah, uh so the practice for me is connecting, so yeah, the whole process really is understanding what's the medicinal properties of of an oak, where is it situated, what inhabits it, and how can then I also understand how to process and make pigment matter or uh paper or whatever it is from it.
00:59:28.960 --> 00:59:34.000
So yeah, with ink, uh with the oak ghouls, they are um full of tannins.
00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:40.320
Um, and then if you mix them with iron oxide, then it turns pitch black.
00:59:40.320 --> 00:59:47.039
So oak ghoul ink is the same ink that they use to write the Bible with.
00:59:47.280 --> 00:59:47.519
Wow.
00:59:47.519 --> 00:59:48.239
Incredible.
00:59:48.239 --> 00:59:50.400
Yeah, and and you're using that for calligraphy.
00:59:50.559 --> 00:59:51.119
Yeah, so yeah.
00:59:51.440 --> 00:59:55.679
You should write your own Essex Bible, the Essex Ten Commandments of the Landscape.
00:59:56.000 --> 00:59:56.639
Love that.
00:59:56.639 --> 00:59:58.320
Manifesto for Essex.
00:59:58.320 --> 00:59:59.199
I think there's already one.
00:59:59.199 --> 01:00:04.480
Mine would look very different, but yeah, and then and then that practice is kind of yeah, embedded in all sorts.
01:00:04.480 --> 01:00:22.880
So thinking about saffron as the colour that they used to they used to dye the saffron, sorry, going back to saffron, but they were dyeing the um the wool and that the wool that was that was you know being collected from around these parts, and then they would dye it and send it to Ireland to be woven and all sorts of things.
01:00:22.880 --> 01:00:23.199
Really?
01:00:23.360 --> 01:00:25.679
So the dye dyed yellow with saffron.
01:00:25.920 --> 01:00:26.320
Yeah, yeah.
01:00:26.960 --> 01:00:28.960
So everyone was like, it's like nice yellow sweater.
01:00:28.960 --> 01:00:30.480
Yeah, it's essence will in it.
01:00:30.719 --> 01:00:31.519
Yeah, exactly.
01:00:32.000 --> 01:00:32.719
It's like saffron.
01:00:32.719 --> 01:00:35.760
Yeah, pure saffron is this.
01:00:36.079 --> 01:00:44.559
Buddhist monks will dye their cloaks orange, you know, saffron, it's that kind of, but also then you're embodying the medicinal properties of the plant when you're wearing it.
01:00:44.559 --> 01:00:55.360
It's funny, we're all wearing synthetic colours, and it's also thinking about you know how once upon a time we'd all be super clean and have naturally dyed clothes, naturally dyed things, and yeah.
01:00:55.440 --> 01:00:57.039
I I love like the history of colours, you know.
01:00:57.039 --> 01:01:00.559
Like in Roman times, apparently purple was mind-blowing.
01:01:00.559 --> 01:01:01.679
Yeah, it was so expensive.
01:01:01.679 --> 01:01:04.880
And if you saw someone in purple, you would just be like, oh my god.
01:01:04.880 --> 01:01:13.679
So it's only like the really richest people would have purple, yeah, purple togas, you know, and everyone would be like, oh my god, because they weren't even used to seeing the colour purple.
01:01:13.679 --> 01:01:15.280
Yeah, yeah.
01:01:15.519 --> 01:01:21.199
Imagine that when you you'd have never seen a colour, yeah, because it's not in your landscape, yeah.
01:01:21.360 --> 01:01:25.519
Yeah, and then suddenly someone's coming along, it's like virtual reality 3D, everything all at the same time.
01:01:25.760 --> 01:01:27.760
Yeah, that's that's a different world, isn't it?
01:01:27.760 --> 01:01:28.880
It's crazy.
01:01:29.119 --> 01:01:30.639
Well, I'll tell you what I learned today.
01:01:30.800 --> 01:01:31.360
Yeah, go on.
01:01:31.360 --> 01:01:32.480
Oh, are you wrapping up?
01:01:32.639 --> 01:01:37.199
No, I'll tell you what I learnt though, because it's bugging me, that's why I have to say it.
01:01:37.199 --> 01:01:43.440
I didn't realise Saffron Warden was somewhere that was named that because of Saffron.
01:01:43.440 --> 01:01:44.159
I didn't either.
01:01:44.159 --> 01:01:50.960
But I'm really shocked, yeah, because I just thought saffron was from our countries, yeah, back home countries.
01:01:50.960 --> 01:01:52.320
I didn't think they made that here.
01:01:52.320 --> 01:01:52.559
Yeah.
01:01:52.800 --> 01:01:55.760
I can't believe they could I can't believe they could grow saffron in Essex either.
01:01:55.920 --> 01:01:57.199
Yeah, well I'm that's sorry, they're gonna be able to do that.
01:01:57.360 --> 01:01:58.639
Essex is exotic.
01:01:58.639 --> 01:01:59.760
Telling you.
01:01:59.760 --> 01:02:09.119
And it was so it was apparently the best, or you know, everyone has that accolade, right, about their own produce, but it was valued very highly.
01:02:09.119 --> 01:02:20.320
Yeah, if you wanted to find some more things out about the colours, of currently exhibiting at the Welcome Collection in London.
01:02:20.559 --> 01:02:21.360
Oh, I love that place.
01:02:21.360 --> 01:02:21.599
Really?
01:02:21.599 --> 01:02:22.239
Yes.
01:02:22.239 --> 01:02:23.039
What's going on there?
01:02:23.280 --> 01:02:25.280
Um, Thirst, in search of fresh water.
01:02:25.280 --> 01:02:33.920
So it's a massive exhibition with um, I don't know how many artists and researchers and artifacts um are there.
01:02:33.920 --> 01:02:36.719
And it's on until 1st of February 2025.
01:02:37.039 --> 01:02:37.760
Oh wow, and this is opposite.
01:02:37.760 --> 01:02:39.199
Yeah.
01:02:39.199 --> 01:02:39.840
2026.
01:02:40.079 --> 01:02:40.719
2026, sorry.
01:02:41.039 --> 01:02:42.960
And this is opposite Euston Square station.
01:02:42.960 --> 01:02:43.360
Yes.
01:02:43.360 --> 01:02:43.840
I love it.
01:02:43.840 --> 01:02:45.360
There's a hidden Picasso there.
01:02:45.440 --> 01:02:45.840
Mm-hmm.
01:02:46.079 --> 01:02:46.639
Over the door.
01:02:47.039 --> 01:02:47.440
I didn't know that.
01:02:47.599 --> 01:02:50.880
Yeah, if you go in and you turn around and there's a there's a really, really cool Picasso there.
01:02:50.880 --> 01:02:51.679
OG.
01:02:52.000 --> 01:02:52.400
Yeah, wow.
01:02:52.639 --> 01:02:54.320
Yeah, it's one of like London's hidden treasures.
01:02:54.480 --> 01:02:54.880
Wow.
01:02:55.039 --> 01:02:55.760
It's fantastic.
01:02:55.920 --> 01:02:56.079
Yeah.
01:02:56.079 --> 01:02:58.000
How do people find you, Laura?
01:02:58.000 --> 01:03:00.079
Um, Instagram is probably a really good place.
01:03:00.480 --> 01:03:01.599
Come here if you're insta.
01:03:01.920 --> 01:03:08.239
At Laura L-O-R-A-M Aziz, A-Z-I-Z underscore.
01:03:09.280 --> 01:03:10.719
And and what about Weird Flora?
01:03:10.719 --> 01:03:13.840
Is that is that is that are you focusing more on the Laura Aziz?
01:03:14.239 --> 01:03:18.079
Yeah, Weird Flora has melted into the past.
01:03:18.400 --> 01:03:18.960
Yeah.
01:03:19.280 --> 01:03:19.920
Yeah.
01:03:20.400 --> 01:03:22.559
So no no one go and follow Weird Flora then.
01:03:22.800 --> 01:03:24.239
No, because it doesn't exist anymore on Instagram.
01:03:24.239 --> 01:03:25.199
It's Laura Aziz.
01:03:25.199 --> 01:03:27.840
I know, it's just because it's Laura Aziz underscore.
01:03:27.840 --> 01:03:28.559
Yeah, thank you.
01:03:28.559 --> 01:03:30.320
Underscore, I love it.
01:03:30.719 --> 01:03:31.280
That's wicked.
01:03:31.280 --> 01:03:35.119
Now I you know, I need to do more foraging and I need to do more country walks.
01:03:35.119 --> 01:03:36.960
I had a foraging book, right?
01:03:36.960 --> 01:03:41.840
And from what I could understand in England, it was like um brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
01:03:41.840 --> 01:03:44.079
April, May, June, January, winter.
01:03:44.079 --> 01:03:45.840
Just eat some Hawthorne.
01:03:45.840 --> 01:03:50.559
Just eat some Hawthorne for like six months, and then you're back to like back to like all the other stuff.
01:03:50.559 --> 01:03:54.320
So I need to go more foraging and explore more things to do.
01:03:55.039 --> 01:03:56.320
You need to do the saffron trail.
01:03:56.480 --> 01:04:00.159
I do need to do the saffron trail, but also I like I love doing a bit of environmental art as well.
01:04:00.159 --> 01:04:01.920
I think my kids were learning about like Andy Gold's.
01:04:01.920 --> 01:04:04.480
Is it Andy Gold's wherever he does all the leaf art and stuff like that?
01:04:04.480 --> 01:04:10.559
I love all that temporal, temporary landscape art and things and just having fun and exploring.
01:04:10.559 --> 01:04:13.119
I like damming little streams.
01:04:13.119 --> 01:04:14.880
That's so fun.
01:04:15.199 --> 01:04:16.079
Well with sticks.
01:04:16.239 --> 01:04:17.920
With sticks, yeah, it's such a great activity.
01:04:17.920 --> 01:04:21.199
Me and my kids can do it for hours, and my wife's like, oh, can guys, can we just go home now?
01:04:21.199 --> 01:04:23.679
No, we're being beavers.
01:04:25.440 --> 01:04:25.679
Cute.
01:04:25.920 --> 01:04:26.639
Oh, I love it.
01:04:27.119 --> 01:04:28.480
Yeah, so get outdoors, everyone.
01:04:28.480 --> 01:04:32.159
Get your hands muddy, get some blue clay on you, get some mud on your stilettos.
01:04:32.159 --> 01:04:34.800
Yeah, it's like aerate those lawns.
01:04:34.800 --> 01:04:35.360
All right.
01:04:35.360 --> 01:04:42.960
If anyone wants to learn about, you know, the land and ethnobotany and things like that, where's a good place to start?
01:04:43.760 --> 01:04:45.199
In your own back garden.
01:04:45.199 --> 01:04:50.239
If you don't have a back garden, then just go outside, look up.
01:04:50.239 --> 01:04:51.760
Is the moon out?
01:04:51.760 --> 01:04:52.719
Is the sun out?
01:04:52.719 --> 01:04:53.519
Have a little look.
01:04:53.519 --> 01:04:55.360
Start start equating yourself with that.
01:04:55.360 --> 01:04:58.719
But if you don't have a back garden, then look outside your front door.
01:04:58.719 --> 01:05:02.159
You might find a little plant in between the on the in between the cracks.
01:05:02.159 --> 01:05:07.039
And if you walk past that plant every single day, try and find out what it is, what it's called.
01:05:07.360 --> 01:05:09.280
Where can you go and find out what it's called?
01:05:09.599 --> 01:05:15.760
So there my favourite way would be to um observe it.
01:05:15.760 --> 01:05:18.800
So to journal it in your own time.
01:05:18.800 --> 01:05:21.760
So look at that plant, you walk past it one day.
01:05:21.760 --> 01:05:23.199
You don't need to know what it is straight away.
01:05:23.199 --> 01:05:24.400
Yesterday you weren't that bothered.
01:05:24.480 --> 01:05:24.880
Yeah.
01:05:25.199 --> 01:05:33.599
And then um tomorrow you might go out and uh or the next season you might see that it's putting up a a a flower, have a look at the flower, what does it look like?
01:05:33.599 --> 01:05:37.440
And then you might be like, oh, that's a dandelion, actually, because I know where that is, it's got a big yellow thing.
01:05:37.440 --> 01:05:40.079
But whereas before you didn't know because it was just the leaves, right?
01:05:40.079 --> 01:05:43.920
So just is your first point of call.
01:05:43.920 --> 01:05:47.360
And if you can't wait, then you can always, you know, take a picture.
01:05:47.360 --> 01:05:50.480
You could always ask someone who's standing next to you, they might know.
01:05:50.480 --> 01:05:52.400
You'd be surprised, they might know.
01:05:52.400 --> 01:05:58.800
Um, you could take a picture and then you can um you can upload it to certain different groups.
01:05:58.800 --> 01:05:59.599
There's lots of Facebook.
01:05:59.599 --> 01:06:02.880
Groups for um plant identification in Essex.
01:06:03.199 --> 01:06:04.079
Google Lens is good.
01:06:04.639 --> 01:06:08.239
Sometimes I'm not I'm not a fan of that.
01:06:08.480 --> 01:06:08.719
Okay.
01:06:09.199 --> 01:06:11.840
Because there's no interaction whatsoever.
01:06:11.840 --> 01:06:13.280
It's giving you one answer.
01:06:13.519 --> 01:06:13.840
Oh yeah.
01:06:13.840 --> 01:06:15.199
And you don't know what's right on.
01:06:15.599 --> 01:06:21.599
And you have no so the Facebook group is really interesting because they can give you a variety of that species.
01:06:21.920 --> 01:06:22.480
Oh yeah, cool.
01:06:22.719 --> 01:06:30.079
So plant, yeah, plants could be like, you know, you could have so many different types of hawthorn, but your app might tell you that one and you might never learn about the other varieties.
01:06:30.079 --> 01:06:32.000
So the conversation around it is so important.
01:06:32.000 --> 01:06:39.679
Ask people because in the age of AI, the age of the internet, where we're so used to hearing one answer, that's not good enough.
01:06:39.679 --> 01:06:41.280
We need to think about it.
01:06:41.599 --> 01:06:45.679
And then you might find out these amazing like Billy Wicks molly dishwasher work names for things.
01:06:46.079 --> 01:06:46.320
Exactly.
01:06:46.320 --> 01:06:48.320
And someone might say, Oh, that's nosebleed.
01:06:48.320 --> 01:06:48.960
And you're like, what?
01:06:48.960 --> 01:06:50.880
And the other person's like, No, that's Yarrow.
01:06:50.880 --> 01:06:52.400
And that's where it gets interesting.
01:06:52.400 --> 01:06:58.400
And then you're like, otherwise, you have to think of its in its Latin name, and the Latin name is only one way to understand that plant.
01:06:58.400 --> 01:07:04.639
You might have walked past that plant all the time and called it Annoying Joe, for example, because it got seeds on you.
01:07:04.639 --> 01:07:05.599
Sticky Willy.
01:07:05.599 --> 01:07:07.199
Sticky Willy is another one.
01:07:07.199 --> 01:07:15.599
And I invite you to start naming your environment, name the plants what are around you, however you like to name them.
01:07:15.599 --> 01:07:18.000
How do they make you feel when you walk past them?
01:07:18.000 --> 01:07:19.760
How does it make you smell?
01:07:19.760 --> 01:07:20.639
What do you smell?
01:07:20.639 --> 01:07:22.159
And maybe you name it after that.
01:07:22.159 --> 01:07:30.239
And start feeling your way through it because that's the only way that we're ever going to get anywhere, is by not having somebody tell you what it is.
01:07:30.400 --> 01:07:30.719
Yeah.
01:07:31.039 --> 01:07:42.719
You have to be willing to show up to that party and ask some questions and and and feel your way through because otherwise, you know, somebody can tell you a name and you'll forget, and that'll be the end of that.
01:07:42.719 --> 01:07:45.760
It's it's not enough just to know a name, it's it's beyond that, I think.
01:07:45.760 --> 01:07:52.000
So, and then that's when you can start playing around with colours and starting wanting to eat it and start wanting to create a whole trail out of something, you know.
01:07:52.000 --> 01:07:53.599
You don't know where it's gonna take you.
01:07:53.599 --> 01:07:55.039
So love it.
01:07:55.039 --> 01:07:56.320
Be curious, yeah.
01:07:56.400 --> 01:07:57.199
Be curious, everyone.
01:07:57.199 --> 01:07:59.360
Yeah, look, look, look up, look up from your phone.
01:07:59.599 --> 01:08:01.119
Look up sticky willy.
01:08:02.480 --> 01:08:08.320
Don't do not Google sticky willy, throw it on someone's back, cleaver.
01:08:08.320 --> 01:08:09.440
Love it.
01:08:13.679 --> 01:08:15.280
Um, so get it, this is good.
01:08:15.280 --> 01:08:18.399
I I I mean I go on a I go out for a walk every weekend.
01:08:18.399 --> 01:08:20.159
Do you get out of the city much?
01:08:20.640 --> 01:08:21.840
Do I get out of this city?
01:08:22.000 --> 01:08:23.680
Yeah, do you go out for walks and stuff?
01:08:24.239 --> 01:08:25.119
Not much.
01:08:25.119 --> 01:08:26.960
I do when I've got my grandbabies.
01:08:27.119 --> 01:08:28.800
You should go and get your sterilato's muddy.
01:08:29.119 --> 01:08:29.359
Yeah.
01:08:30.000 --> 01:08:31.760
Have you been on a rope swing recently?
01:08:31.760 --> 01:08:32.640
No.
01:08:32.640 --> 01:08:33.520
So fun.
01:08:33.520 --> 01:08:36.239
Go out like um just go out, go out and see it.
01:08:36.479 --> 01:08:37.439
Go mash up my back, yeah.
01:08:37.520 --> 01:08:39.760
Well, even worse than it already is.
01:08:39.760 --> 01:08:40.880
Let's do it.
01:08:40.880 --> 01:08:43.359
Go and beaver stream up.
01:08:44.000 --> 01:08:47.279
Well, I loved what Laura just said about find a plant and name it.
01:08:47.279 --> 01:08:47.600
Yeah, yeah.
01:08:47.600 --> 01:08:49.840
Now my neighbour's plant comes into my garden.
01:08:49.840 --> 01:08:50.720
So, do you know what?
01:08:50.720 --> 01:08:52.000
I'm gonna call it annoying.
01:08:52.000 --> 01:08:52.239
Yeah.
01:08:52.239 --> 01:08:52.720
Right?
01:08:52.720 --> 01:08:56.399
And then I'm gonna go question him now and go, You're an annoying plant.
01:08:56.399 --> 01:08:58.000
What's that all about?
01:08:58.000 --> 01:09:02.720
Because actually, I didn't think of it about looking at plants, naming plants.
01:09:02.720 --> 01:09:04.319
I've learned so much from you today.
01:09:04.319 --> 01:09:06.159
Things that I would just never have thought of.
01:09:06.560 --> 01:09:07.279
Yeah, it's brilliant.
01:09:07.279 --> 01:09:08.000
It's really exciting.
01:09:08.000 --> 01:09:12.960
And to think about like the whole environment as one huge big art piece of art, really, and culture.
01:09:12.960 --> 01:09:14.000
It's so interesting.
01:09:14.000 --> 01:09:18.640
Not just little individual things, and it's changing every second, every millisecond.
01:09:18.640 --> 01:09:19.520
Every second.
01:09:19.520 --> 01:09:23.039
Full moon! Thank you for listening to iCreative.
01:09:23.039 --> 01:09:27.520
Uh, follow us at at r.ucreative.podcast.
01:09:27.520 --> 01:09:28.399
Something like that.
01:09:28.399 --> 01:09:29.359
Just look it up.
01:09:29.359 --> 01:09:30.479
Uh, thank you, Nick.
01:09:30.479 --> 01:09:31.359
No, yeah, no problem.
01:09:31.359 --> 01:09:32.079
Yeah, no problem.
01:09:32.079 --> 01:09:32.560
Yeah, it's good.
01:09:32.560 --> 01:09:34.479
I'm gonna do loads of stuff for charity next week.
01:09:34.479 --> 01:09:35.920
Uh, thank you, Sangator.
01:09:35.920 --> 01:09:37.359
Thank you, Nick.
01:09:37.359 --> 01:09:38.159
Yeah, no problem.
01:09:38.159 --> 01:09:40.560
Yeah, do a lot of good work for charity, don't like to talk about it.
01:09:40.560 --> 01:09:42.560
Thanks, Adam Whitaker from Locker Media.
01:09:42.560 --> 01:09:43.279
Get out of my studio.
01:09:43.279 --> 01:09:45.119
Woo woo! I've got an early start.
01:09:45.119 --> 01:09:48.239
Um, and thank you very much, Laura.
01:09:48.720 --> 01:09:49.680
Thanks for having me.
01:09:49.840 --> 01:09:51.520
Yeah, really thank you for coming.
01:09:51.520 --> 01:09:54.960
Yeah, so um, join best guest ever with Marley.
01:09:54.960 --> 01:09:55.279
Thank you.
01:09:55.279 --> 01:09:56.239
Bless you, yeah.
01:09:56.239 --> 01:09:58.399
Oh, what can we say on the way out?
01:09:58.399 --> 01:10:00.079
I don't know.
01:10:00.079 --> 01:10:02.319
I'm gonna decide it's full full moon.
01:10:02.640 --> 01:10:05.279
Everybody that's listening, let's hit suck on water.