Dr Fred and I ran our autumnal star weekend - it was, as always, a great weekend, good company and we were lucky with the weather. Its a year since we had done a weekend and last years event coincided with storm Arwen leaving the Ninebanks youth hostel we usually book without power for almost the whole weekend. It was quite an adventure requiring cooking on on stove and using candles and the wood burner fire for light and heat - although we did get some spectacular night skies on the Saturday - as if the storm had blown away all the clouds. This year it was a little bit simpler - we kept the numbers low to accommodate everyone comfortably due to covid risk and we were a small but elite group.
The weekend always runs pretty much to the same format, lots of interesting talks given by Dr Fred and steaming plates of carb loaded food provided by me- if you are stood outside in October stargazing you need plenty of calories to keep warm... there are always a proliferation of cakes and no one goes hungry.
Saturday afternoon are 'free time' and usually people take off for a walk - as up West Allandale, it is very fine wandering country but this time most of us decided to go up to Hadrian's Wall at Housesteads. I remembered there was a temporary art installation as part of the celebrate the 1900 festival. I had seen this art installation on social media and was in two minds about it - it looked brash and out of place in the richly beautiful countryside but several people had said it was really good so we decided to have a field trip out to make up our own minds.
'The Future Belongs to What Was as Much as What Is'
It is in fact extremely splendid! Yes it is very large and imposing on the landscape and very vibrant and colourful but somehow it works. Every photograph I had seen really did not do it justice in situ - built on the remains of the old north gatehouse to the same proportions it allowed visitors to climb up an view the countryside as the Romans would have seen it in the original structure - first time since the gatehouse was taken down... collapsed... demolished??
As a piece of art it was very clever and the short film in the visitors centre explained the premise of the ideas very well. The artist Morag Myerscough is renowned for bold colourful installations and community involvement. This particular piece was made up of a large scaffolded structure covered with over 300 colourful boards painted with quotes, words, statements and pictures the local community groups associated with the area and what Hadrian's wall meant to them. The groups were diverse in their make up and it seemed like there had been a place for anyone who had wanted to be involved.
I felt that the whole thing worked wonderfully - some messages were more obvious that others but most importantly it presented a cohesive interesting colourful historical artefact. It contrasted very strongly with the ruined remains of Housesteads and somehow it just din't look out of place!! It was interesting to climb up and look out all four sides to see how the marauding Scots would have tumbled over the hill and to see the vast green countryside just stretching out for miles...
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