The Yellow Line: Whose View Is It Anyway?

Poetry by Harriet Frase

What Rises Above the White Noise: the Possibility of Hearing Truth in a Post-truth World

This installation in a valley in the UK’s Lake District National Park taps into the idea of communication, the problem of apparent fact and post-truth, and which voices are being heard when it comes to standing up for the environment. In consideration of post-truth and the confusion between fact and fiction, particularly with regard to issues about environment, this art installation explores the possibility of clarity in voices that are heard above the white noise of facts, partial truths and information overload. It is a site-specific installation, created around a single tree and a rapidly flowing river in the Lake District National Park, where many different organizations strive for balance between human occupation and natural biodiversity, and not everyone feels their voices are heard or adequately acted upon

The role of the dean in the pastoral care structure of a secondary school

Pastoral care structures in New Zealand schools often include a middle management role of dean. This position has existed in New Zealand schools for decades, influenced by the existing systems and structures adopted from the United Kingdom. The responsibilities included in this role are often defined by schools at the local level in order to satisfy growing expectations of schools’ responsibility for student well-being and achievement. There has been little research concerning this position within the pastoral care structure of schools. This study aimed to explore the perceptions of members of the school community on the role of the year-level deans within one New Zealand secondary school. Senior managers, deans, teachers, and students from a state co-educational, urban, secondary school were interviewed regarding their views on the role, responsibilities, and effectiveness of the position of the year-level dean within their school. Deans also completed a daily log to record the nature of their tasks completed pertaining to this responsibility. Participants’ responses were analysed for major themes. The themes discussed include the intention of the role of the dean, tensions between the management of academic and pastoral issues, the exploration of the challenge in providing care for all students, and how resources available to the school and the dean can impact their role. A difference in the role between the junior school (Years 9 and 10) and senior school (Years 11, 12, and 13) was reported by all participants. Deans reported engaging in reactive tasks more than proactive, preventative tasks. Defining the role of the dean and its relationship to other roles within the school proved challenging for the perspectives, and this confusion was evident through a lack of clarity around lines of authority described in the job descriptions. Deans reported some difficulty in understanding their role in relation to managing form teachers, particularly where that staff member may hold a position of responsibility in curriculum. The reactive nature of the role was revealed. This indicated that deans continue to provide predominantly reactive care concerned with individual students, often meaning that only a small group of students receive direct care from deans. The predominantly reactive nature of the role creates implications for schools in the challenge of delivering care to all students. A more collaborative approach to pastoral care from all staff members may improve the provision of pastoral care for students. A proposed job description that may reflect the role of the dean more accurately is presented

Making Sense of Here: revealing multiple narratives of place through artistic process and integrating art and artists into transdisciplinary research

The celebrated English Lake District, a national park and World Heritage Site, embraces complexity and tension. In landscape decision-making, farmers, landowners, policy makers, ecologists, residents, tourists and businesses have vested interests, as do the land and other-than-humans; yet the challenge remains in considering voices equitably and integrating complex environmental data. The art project Sense of Here (Citation2018–2020), incorporating learning from local experts, scientists and land managers, and using walking, poetry, photography, film and installations, aimed to portray and connect multiple perspectives. Learning from Sense of Here was instrumental in the establishment of the multi-artist PLACE Collective within the UK Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas; and contributed to the Windermere Accord, formed through the Ensemble Fellowship to improve pathways to better understand, mitigate and adapt to environmental change. This paper shares insights from Sense of Here and considers the role of art in shifting patterns of dialogue across different silos

‘Open Fell Poetics’ A year in upland farming: investigating the Lake District as a cultural landscape through practice based poetics

This thesis is the result of two years spent alongside upland farmers in Cumbria and the development of a poetic practice arising from experimentation with form. It presents an almanac of the farming year together with a collection of poems inspired by my time with the farmers in the yards and on the fells. My practical research has been rooted in farming tasks and conversations with present-day farmers, and in walks and conversations with others who manage the landscape in the Lake District National Park. This complements literary research that provides a contextual overview of history of literature relating to the Lake District; both are set within the context of the Lake District as a cultural landscape, as defined by UNESCO. I examine the celebration of the region in popular writing, with an emphasis on poetry, and consider the under-acknowledgement of hill farming in its shaping of the landscape’s appearance, and a tendency in literature to idealise this tough way of life. The English Lake District has, since the eighteenth century, been noted for its beauty, and attracts millions of tourists each year, many of whom are familiar with the work of celebrated writers and poets, perhaps most notably William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge and Alfred Wainwright. My thesis argues that existing popular literature often misrepresents upland farming, and I use creative writing to offer insights into farming practices that are often unseen, or overlooked, by the casual visitor to the Lake District as much as they are by literary commentators. My practice is grounded in the act of making notes while in the field; my notes form the raw material for almanac entries and poems. Some poems have been developed, in form and presentation, following the traditions of Concrete Poetry and Open Field Poetics, and take these approaches further through the physical combination of poems and farming: I use traditional farming materials as canvases for words so that the poem’s expression incorporates land, weather, livestock and people. The poems begin on farms, are developed on paper, and then pass through the hands of farmers and return to farms where they find their final expression. I have called this practice ‘Open Fell Poetics’. The use of prose as well as poetry is an independent presentation of two distinct forms. The prosaic form of the almanac allows for the integration of farmers’ voices and reveals a collaboration between myself and them. The poetry highlights specific moments and allows for experimentation with form and space. The release of poems onto material that moves and changes allows the poems to embody the immutable topography of Cumbria and the unpredictability of upland farming: farmers must respond to the limitations of a fixed landscape while adapting to changing weather, policies and market forces. This challenges the view that any one piece of writing, or any single form of text, can definitively represent a culture as changeable and complex as upland hill farming, and invites a consideration from the reader or viewer of the role of literature in both defining and reflecting a cultural landscape

Watershed: Place-based research using art as a tool for engagement and critical enquiry into relationships and landscape change within the Ullswater catchment

This poster, by Harriet Fraser, was produced in the context of the UKRI-funded Watershed project. Watershed combines geography and art to explore perspectives on nature, culture and landscape change within the Ullswater valley. It aims to encourage dialogue between and across different interest groups and inform further work on rethinking relationships within a shared rural environment. Harriet is Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Cumbria and founder of the PLACE Collective: a community of artists engaged with issues of nature, environment and rural landscapes

Watershed: Place-based research using art as a tool for engagement and critical enquiry into relationships and landscape change within the Ullswater catchment

In this presentation I will reflect on the progress of the Watershed project. Watershed combines Geography and Art to explore perspectives on nature, culture and landscape change within the Ullswater Valley. It involves five artists from the PLACE Collective and aims to encourage dialogue across different interest groups, with reflection on processes of change, and perceptions of relationships between humans and the rest of the living world. The research takes place within the theoretical context of post-humanism, where humans are not considered to be at the centre of things, nor the most intelligent of species, and explores concepts of entanglement, inter-connectivity and distributed agency. In considering the geographical and policy context for the research, I will discuss local sustainability initiatives, upland farming and commoning, net-zero targets, national biodiversity indices, and post-Brexit agricultural and environmental policies. Two key lines of enquiry are to find out what happens as conversations unfold among local residents and land management specialists through the media of various art practices, and how the project artists respond to an iterative and collaborative place-based process. 1. Watershed is funded through the UKRI ‘Enhancing Research Culture’ fund. PI Dr Jamie Mcphie. 2. The PLACE Collective, based at the Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas, is a group of artists who are critically engaged in transdisciplinary research centred on issues of environment, nature and rurality. 3. Watershed is a case study that will inform the direction of Harriet Fraser’s PhD: ‘Rethinking agency and action in environmental and landscape change: arts practice as a tool for critical enquiry in protected landscapes.’ Harriet is Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Cumbria and founder of the PLACE Collective: a community of artists engaged with issues of nature, environment and rural landscapes

Watershed exhibition: poetry and installation

The PLACE Collective lead artist and Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Cumbria Harriet Fraser contributed the poetry and installation to this exhibition. Film, music, poetry, photographs, creative maps and 3D installations set the stage for reflection and conversations about landscape change, land management and human-nature relationships in the Ullswater Valley. The Watershed exhibition, held at Glenridding village hall, drew in more than 300 people over just three days in July 2023. The work was created by five artists from the PLACE Collective: lead artist Harriet Fraser (poetry and installation), Rob Fraser (photography); Matt Sharman (film), Sarah Smout (cello and song writing) and Kate Gilman Brundrett (mixed media). The exhibition kicked off with an open evening and live performances for those who had spent time with the artists in the first half of 2023: the room was filled with members of local community groups, farmers, landowners, ecologists and staff from land management organisations. This UKRI-funded project has offered a new approach to transdisciplinary connections in the Ullswater valley, using art practice to highlight key issues, to stimulate questions, discussions and reflection, and to bring people together. An analysis of the interviews, participant feedback, artists’ experience and audience comments will inform the next phase of Harriet Fraser’s PhD research as she continues to explore issues of agency and action in environmental change and decision making