Wild Uplands #1

One bright, dry but windy day, I decided the time had come to visit the moorland above Haworth to see a series of sculptures exhibited as part of the Bradford City of Culture. Four artists have been invited to create site-specific artworks, 'taking inspiration both from this natural landscape and from our shared industrial heritage; from true stories and imagined fables; and from the history of this countryside and its potential future in light of the climate crisis.' Wild Uplands also includes Earth and Sky, an immersive sound walk created with Opera North that people can listen to as they explore the landscape - though of course (deaf) I wasn't able to enjoy that.  Maybe I would have appreciated it all more had I been able to. 

I could just about relate to 'Tower' by Steve Messam. This is a monumental work, clad in raw sheep fleece from local breeds, that obviously references the wool textile heritage of Bradford. It had some resonance with the bales of hay that you might at one time have seen in the fields (nowadays shrink-wrapped in plastic!), with the outcrops of gritstone that rise through the moors, and perhaps with the follies and monuments that dot our landscape. 

But then I came to 'The Children of Smokeless Fire' by Monira Al Qadiri - and here, I'm afraid, she lost me. It says it is 'a work of mystery and magic with two distinct inspirations: the famous ‘Cottingley Fairies’, created by two Bradford girls in 1917, and the Djinns, mythical beings depicted in a 13th-century Islamic manuscript by Zakariya al-Qazwini.'  No doubt there's a cultural barrier for me but I couldn't feel the link to this wild moorland, even though it is famous as a result of the writings of the Brontë sisters' novels, equally mythical stories in a way. They just looked totally incongruous in this setting, though I could perhaps have warmed to them more had they been in a town park. 

Never mind. I don't have to like all the art I see and not liking the art didn't spoil a good, breezy yomp around the moor!