Working at a distance for both our “site visit” to Chopwell Woods, UK in summer 2020 and our residency in spring 2021 was an exciting challenge for us. Having never visited Chopwell Wood or met anyone there in person, we explored new ways of doing things that we'd normally do ourselves. For example, walking, finding and collecting are an important part of our practice — it's how we usually start any process. We always try to find connections between embodied experiences, like picking up rocks, smelling spring buds or listening to nesting birds, and local knowledge and personal histories. How can we do this when we are not physically there?

In mid-April we reached out to some 3 WOODS friends and asked if they would walk with us in Chopwell Wood via video chat. The idea quickly evolved from solo walks into a collaborative walk, talk, and sharing between ourselves, Peter Downes, Access and Woodland Officer Land of Oak & Iron, Oisin MacNamara, Friends’ of Chopwell Wood Trustee and Wildlife & Conservation Officer, Ros Rigby, Chair, Land of Oak & Iron Partnership and Graeme Rigby, a resident and forest enthusiast.

The video “Woodland Wanderers” is a result of our collaboration. Ros, Graeme, Oisin, and Peter met with Kate Craddock and videographer Michael Morgan to spend an afternoon walking around Chopwell, sharing stories, histories and their knowledge of the woods. We called in on video at designated spots to join the conversation, see the landscape, hear the birds, and ask questions. It wasn't exactly like walking together, but doing it this way meant that we could be in the woods and share time and space with these really wonderful folks.

We presented this video at GIFT Exchange in combination with a group discussion. In particular, the 6 of us discussed the intimacy of the collaboration, how process is often enough (do we always need a “product”?), and how visiting Chopwell Wood though the lens of an artistic framework has opened up new ways of seeing the woods themselves.