One Ash: James Aldridge — Andover Trees United

The One Ash project launched in 2020 with the aim of giving young people from four Andover schools a greater understanding of the role of trees in our lives. The project connects the school children with crafters, artists and other people who work with wood on a daily basis.

On 13th February 2020 the children, crafters, artists and wood-workers witnessed the felling of an ash tree on the Englefield Estate near Reading. The tree was then divided and distributed to the individual wood-workers and you can follow the journey of the wood and the many different forms it will take through the One Ash journal pages.

James Aldridge is a visual artist based in Wiltshire. In 2019 James led the one-year visual arts project, Ash Tree Stream in partnership with Andover Trees United, CAS (Chapel Arts Studios) and five schools in the Andover area. Here we catch-up with James and his engagement with the One Ash project…

What have you been up to with your piece of the ‘One Ash’ since felling day?

After the felling day I took some time to get to know my section of the One Ash stem. It’s a weighty cross section through the trunk, of a size that fits well into my arms or onto my lap. I decided to sand down one side to reveal the rings more clearly and to contrast with the saw marks on the other side. I wanted to use this piece of the tree to spark conversations, to represent the tree as a whole, so I kept the section intact rather than cutting it down or making a new object from it.

I took some photographs of my section (nicknamed Ashley) together with different parts of my body and made rubbings onto paper from both sides, before starting to take him/her out to meet people. Ashley didn’t make it to as many places as I’d hoped because of the Covid lockdowns, but came with me to workshops that I ran at the Hayward Gallery with Climate Museum UK, and to other events nearer to home in Wiltshire, as well as the Ash Tree Stream exhibition at the CAS chapel in Andover.

Embodied experiences of places, and of the other beings that live there, are key to my arts practice, and when I take Ashley out to meet people, they feel moved to hold, smell and stroke him, looking closely at his details and talking about their own personal experiences of Ash trees or of trees in general.

The natural world has a huge impact on your work. When did this connection with the natural world begin and how is if reflected in your process and imagery?

I use my work to offer experiences of continuity with the rest of nature, through art and walking. Right from a small boy I have drawn and made, gardened and collected - including shells, fossils and bones. I think it’s crucial that for our own wellbeing and that of the ecosystems that we are a part, that we are given opportunities for these moments of connection, beyond culturally inherited ways of seeing and being with the world, in order to realise that we are Nature, it’s not something ‘out there’ that we can choose to plunder or to save.

Your work incorporates all kinds of materials, both natural and recycled. Do you have a favourite material to work with? Do you have a favourite medium to work in?

I like to weave and layer a range of materials together, finding the unity that exists beneath the surface. We name and label things as natural or man-made, plastic or organic, when really everything comes from and returns to the same source. I love the freedom of using different materials and processes, chosen to fit a particular subject matter or place, from film to drawing, writing to making.

What role do you think art plays in our greater understanding and/or awareness of climate change?

I think art can enable us to see beyond the world in which we currently live, and to imagine new possibilities. I also think that art can enable us to cope better with change, and there are some big changes coming. In my own arts practice I try to give people glimpses of the bigger picture through direct experience - allowing people to experience their place within wider systems, and to know themselves more fully. More and more I am focusing on how these ways of working can provide us with coping mechanisms which enable greater resilience in the face of the Earth Crisis.

What affect has the pandemic had on your work?

The pandemic forced me to stay closer to home, to make work about my own local patch. It also encouraged me to be more creative about how I fit my arts practice into my daily life, in between home schooling and housework. It encouraged me to develop my digital skills and knowledge so that I could engage with people online as well as in the woods or community spaces, creating new film-based work for example.

What are you currently working on? What inspired this?

I’m currently focusing on a research project that I setup called Queer River which explores the role of Queer perspectives on wetlands and what they need from us in the future. I’ve been collaborating with artists, archaeologists, river restoration experts and others, to look at the different ways that we experience rivers and other associated wetland environments, and how that might change in the future. Next month for example I will be in Glasgow, working with Glasgow University along the Rivers Kelvin and Clyde as part of their Dear Green Bothy project, which is ‘hosting creative and critical responses to climate emergency’ in the lead up to the COP26 climate talks. My involvement began through my role as an Associate Artist with Climate Museum UK.

What makes you feel hopeful for the future?

I’m not sure that I do feel hopeful to be honest, not in the way that people might take the question to mean - hopeful about our ability to stop Climate Breakdown for instance. It’s here already and it’s going to get a lot worse. I guess what helps me keep going, helps me cope, is my arts practice, which focuses my attention on the beauty and life that is still here, and gives me a sense of purpose. I think all each of us can do is to take action in whatever way suits our passions, our knowledge and skills, and being an artist is what I do. The book Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, and conversations that I’ve had with others on what hope is and whether it is a useful concept right now, have been really useful. For instance, I understand Active Hope to be a way of keeping going despite how grim things look, of focusing your energy of doing what you can, when you can, working with others and looking after yourself.

If you would like to find out more about James’s work with the One Ash project follow his journal.

You can read about all the crafters, artists and wood-workers on the One Ash project page.

An exhibition of the One Ash project, including James’s work, is planned for 2022 and will form part of the 10-year celebration of all that Andover Trees United has achieved, including the completion of planting in Harmony Woods.