Albion, 2016

Here at the boarder, Scotland falls away at the bottom of the image with an indication to the Caledonian Orogeny. [The fault line of the Caledonian Orogeny in Scotland formed some 520 million years ago when North Scotland merged with England and Wales, as the tectonic plates of the world moved again into the form that we now know today].

In response to these politically turbulent times, the projection of the map has been altered from the conventional way. It has been created with a South-up orientation. Interestingly, this proceeded the Brexit Referendum of 2016 and as a result the map provides a distorted vision of the two nations that voted for Brexit and a rather quixotic and inwardly looking landmass – confused and mysterious in its outlook.

Amongst the many things shown and pinpointed on this map are the major rivers, presented here, once again as prominent features – arteries of exchange and fundamental to the positioning of settlements.

The motorways and national footpaths are the arteries of travel across the landscape.

The cardinal lighthouses stand along the coastline; so are the contours of the sea and the shipping forecast zones.

Many historical and sacred sights sites are shown - Stone Henge, Stanton Drew, Wood Henge, Avebury and Silbury Hill, many of which are still clouded in mystery.

Also included is some of the nations’ famous tress, such the Big Belly Oak of Savernake.

Cathedrals; monuments; ruins; castles and ancient geographical landmarks abound.

The major power stations are shown - nuclear and coal.

Some of the bazaar yearly customs to be found across the nation also get a look in like the Cheese Rolling at Cooper’s Hill And the Haxey Hood in Lincolnshire.

The map is also littered with weird and wonderful place names such as Snodland (Kent), Temple Cloud (Somerset), Giggleswick (Yorkshire) and Blubber Houses, as well as other names that denote places’ past usages. The names themselves become landmarks.

Prominent ancient tribal names of the Romans period are also drawn bleeding out from the landscape from where they came.

Some of the words appear from a wonderful glossary collated by Robert Macfarlane in his book Landmarks of regional words from a number of dialects that describe natural phenomena.

In folklore and history, there are legends and famous figures that attach themselves to certain places - Robin Hood, King Arthur and Spring Healed Jack… Many of which are included in this map. Numerous sites associated with the legends of ‘King’ Arthur are pinpointed here, such as Tintagel (Cornwall) and Cadbury Castle (Somerset) - or ‘Camelot’ as some people propose.

The oldest known Shrovetide football games in the world at Ashbourne and Alnwick.

Of particular interest, are those that mirror well-known and important historical events where folklore gathers in order to remember them and the recording of loss. Dinas Emrys (Snowdonia) is attached to the rise of the legendary Merlin (Mwelrin) and where the battle between the Red and White dragons occurred in his prophecy. This myth contributed to the eventual rising of the Welsh national symbol - its Red Dragon.

Dinas Emrys was the site of the last great battle of the British Druids against the Roman invasion in the year 51 CE. The last remnants of the Druid culture at the time had been pushed back to the Isle of Anglesea, or Mona as it was once called.

The Druids were defeated here at the base of Snowdonia and the Pagan culture retreated further North into Scotland and Westwards into Ireland. This is an example of where this map landmarks historical events that have then gone on to shape and mirror our folklore. The legend of Merlin, apart from being a characterization of many fragmented stories of an archetypal hero, it is in essence harking back to a lost pre Roman culture that would live on in history through story telling. The legend of King Arthur marks the passing of a once native culture (at least perceived that way) – into an era of the Anglo-Saxons. Folktales and physical landmarks are essentially memorials to history.

Other historical events that have influenced folklore are the witch-hunts of 16th and 17th Century England. These were most prominent in Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk.

Strange natural phenomena find their way into folklore, such as flickering lights that ignite over marshy ground (caused by rising of gases from decaying matter underground. These have giving rise to names such as Punket, Jack o’ Lantern, Will o’ the Wisp and Lantern Man of the Fens.

Certain well-known bogeymen and wild beasts get a look in. Black Dog legends are to be found across Britain - stories told by parents in warning to their children against the dangers of wondering out alone at night in places still semi-wild.

In celebration of an alternative, gothic nation immortalized in fiction - Dartmoor becomes ‘Grimpen Mire’ from the hound of the Baskervilles.

Whitby becomes ‘Dracula’s Landing’

The map also celebrates the act of gathering, especially for music festivals. Many of which are included on the map, such as the legendary Isle of White festivals of 1969-70, Glastonbury Fair and many of the contemporary ones that have sprung up all over the country.

Some of the major pre-Roman solstice lines and other ley lines are marked. Rather than being anything to do with super-natural forces; these are thought to have been the first human navigational routes through the landscape incorporating prominent natural features as sighting guides. The map also traces the Meridian Line as it travels from The Greenwich Lighthouse in the Channel, through Peacehaven (Sussex), Greenwich (London), all the way to the Meridian marker at Sand le Mere on the East Yorkshire coastline.

It also maps the wind and the offshore oil and gas platforms.

In celebration of an alternative, gothic nation immortalized in fiction - Dartmoor becomes ‘Grimpen Mire’ from the hound of the Baskervilles.

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Walter-Albion, 2014-15, (Original Drawing)

263.7 x 231.1 cm

Graphite on Paper

Walter-Albion, (HC) Hors Commerce Edition of 5

151.5 x 172.6cm, Archival inkjet Print Edition of 5.

These have entered the Art Collections of: University of Exeter; The Royal Geographical Society (Institute of British Geographers); Flash of Splendor Art CIC & The English Folk Dance and Song Society (Cecil Sharp House, London).

Further information:

The Commission:

Walter-Albion Walter-Albion was commissioned by the arts organization Flash of Splendor Art CIC, in partnership with Exeter University and the Heritage Lottery Fund. I was asked to create a work that would contribute to the Poly-Olbion Project – looking to re-engage with Michael Drayton’s epic 17th century topographical poem.

I presented my original drawing entitled Albion, at an exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in September 2015. It hung alongside other works by artists such as Charles Newington; and paintings made by the children taking part in the Poly-Olbion project - led by Flash of Splendor Arts CIC and their heritage education programs with children’s art groups. Other works included an original publication of Poly-Olbion and William Hole’s map illustrations. Further images and works were exhibited in a touring show at Cecil Sharp House, London, and The Forum - University of Exeter, 2015.

The Works: Albion & Walter-Albion. From the original drawing entitled Albion, exhibited at the RGS, I was commissioned to produce a limited edition print entitled Walter-Albion, 2016. This consists of an edition of five (HC) Hors Commerce prints. Leading on from the commission, I developed the image further and produced a Limited Edition Print for the market – again, entitled Albion. This separate image is published by TAG Fine Arts, London, and released on to the market in 2016 (Edition of 25).

The concept & its links with Poly-Olbion:

Michael Drayton’s Poly-Olbion, first published in 1622, is a celebration of landscape and its features and the legends that have attached themselves to certain places. As if floating through the air on a lingual journey, weaving from one place to the next - the poem pleasures in the many stories and myths that have accumulated over time. It is also a celebration of the names of places.

Drayton was in the end unable to include Scotland in his Poly-Olbion, as he had originally intended - it only covered England & Wales. I would mirror Drayton by omitting Scotland in my re-shaping of Britain whilst contemplating a potential split from the Scottish Independence Referendum of 2014.

This political fault-line is once again being questioned with further calls for another Scottish Independence vote and further devolution.

William Hole’s map illustrations of Poly-Olbion provided a visual guide and whilst occasionally dipping into the poem itself, it was at this initial stage when my project began to move away from these works and venture into my own research and interests.

In delving into this territory, it would have been easy to find myself on unstable ground. I tried to hold back from many of the myths that were deemed too localized in nature, as well as the more fanciful dragons, fairies and ghost stories that circulate in folklore. However, a couple of famous examples have entered the work - such as the ‘Brown Lady’ of Rainham Hall (Norfolk), probably the most well known all be it fake photograph of a ghost legend in the country.

Many of the ‘enchantments’ on this map are from folklore glossaries It also highlights historical sites that are already open to visitors and those places increasingly explored by the curious. Others can be discovered through these folklores of our nation.

Many of the weird and wonderful names on this map are still to be found in existence. Other names hint at the past such as the Isle of Avalon - meaning the ‘land of apples’; ‘Pig Hill’ denoting (Swine don) – Swindon; and Bodmin – formally known as ‘House of the Monks’. In some cases, the place names describe the landscape features around which they are built - the village of Weeting by the Fens is one example. Others describe the flora and fauna found to frequent these places, while some point to their original or past usages. I celebrate these words and names as emblems.

I include a few inventions and characteristics of my own in response to contemporary life but essentially it is a map that stands for a re-enchantment of place and a fascination with the landscape that is the receptacle for all our lives. It is a testament to those that have survived the test of time.

The undulating shading on the map mirrors the relief of the land and the rivers are once again seen as veins through the country, hinting at their previous function as trade routes and highways where stories and interactions circulated. As we look to preserve the many eco-systems that exist in our country as well as the threat of rising water levels, rivers are once again rising in our consciousness’s and importance.

Influences:

Albion takes on the style of many historical maps from antiquity such as those of Abraham Ortilius (1527 – 1598), John Roque (1709–1762), and pictorial maps such as Jacopo de’Barbari’s’ map of Venice, 1500. It runs close to reinterpretations of old maps by Grayson Perry and is heavily influenced by the monumental drawings of Nobson Newtown by artist Paul Noble; where for Noble – names become a place – words become pictures. It is also informed by fantasy maps and other quasi-real places described by the likes of Italo Calvino, in his Invisible Cities; also Charles Avery’s Islanders. However, Albion is a celebration of the actual geography of Britain and where ideas of ‘place’ form starting points for wider investigations into ethics, the politics of space and our inherited and shared understandings.

Conclusion:

In contemplating the relation between the landscape and our culture - I hope the landmarks and the names on this map, will hold some meaning and point towards the vast mystery of our language and how it forms and changes over time. These etymologies are seen here as old things that form and enter-weave with the lower layers of our national document - embedded within the land and the water that contains us. It fights against the contemporary urge to proclaim landscape as arbitrary. I doff my cap to such writers as Robert Macfarlane and his book Landmarks, where he has compiled of a glossary of local words and sayings that describe the landscape and its natural phenomena. These chthonic elements exist somewhere in between the landscape our language and our culture. They begin to seep upwards again to the surface and find their way onto this map.

It is also no coincidence that this re configuration of Britain, in particularly England and Wales, mirrors the recent moving tectonic plate of Politics in Britain after the EU Referendum. It now points to a period of navel gazing into a more insular restructuring of our institutions and a further threat to the breaking up of the United Kingdom…

Albion is a work that considers a recent and growing sense that nations are starting to politically look in on themselves. There are also questions surrounding national identity. My intention was to tackle these forces by seeking a re-enchantment of my country even after its potential splitting up.

I do not claim to believe in fairies and dragons, or in King Arthur and Merlin for that matter. I do however, believe in the celebration of mysterious places and the piecing together of fragments and clues of historical events that have shaped the stories that we know today. I also believe in the celebration of the Landscape itself - its antiquity and its role as the receptacle from which our culture has emerged.

Albion – the name:

Albion is a poetic name for England or Britain. It is an Old English name and related to the Latin word albus, meaning 'white', probably of Celtic origin. Perhaps albus refers to the White cliffs of South East England where the Greeks, Celts and Romans would have first encountered Britain from across the Channel. Alba or Albany was adopted for Scotland. The name Britain, is said to have first been recorded by the great geographer and explorer Pytheas of Massalia (modern-day Marseille), on his reputed voyage and circumnavigation of Bretannikē in roughly 320BC.

The name Albion is often attached to mythical investigations of England. William Blake referred to it in his Albion Rose, 1795, in his heroic portrayal of a perfect primeval being. John Matthews and others write of an Arthur of Albion. In this sense - Albion, stands for an emblem of a lost and distant part of Britain. The name appears in a number of sporting teams including West Bromwich Albion and Brighton and Hove Albion FC. It can appear often as a pub name, and as a place name especially in Canada and USA.

A name is a curious thing. We will never know what Britain was called in the Neolithic Age when the great henges of stone and burial mounds were being built. Even so, in an age of recorded history today, etymological sources are rarely certain to their exact origins, especially when concerned with old names that do not simply refer to a person, trade or geographical feature. The vast mystery of our language and the way in which a name can morph and dovetail with preceding tongues provide us with an insights into the history of a place, but it also adds further layers on top of an already adopted name, taking it further away from its source. This map seeks to highlight a number of legends that having connections with real and historical events, such as Dinas Emrys in Snowdonia.

Signs and symbols, as well the spoken or written language, form part of our inherited history, past down through the ages. Maps are representations of landscapes filled with these names, signs and symbols. Certain names and customs cling to locations on the map. Over time they merge with folklore and culture and either fade away or in some cases they remain. These cultural residues then become landmarks and it is some of these landmarks that I seeks to highlight in this map.

Further information on works:

http://poly-olbion.exeter.ac.uk/

www.tagfinearts.com

List of Albion works by Stephen Walter:

Albion, 2016, 151.8 x 183.2cm, Archival inkjet Print. Edition of 25.

Walter-Albion, 2014-15, (Original Drawing), 263.7 x 231.1 cm, Graphite on Paper.

Walter-Albion, (HC) Hors Commerce Edition, 151.5 x 172.6cm, Archival inkjet Print Edition of 5. These have entered the Art Collections of: University of Exeter; The Royal Geographical Society (Institute of British Geographers); Flash of Splendor Art CIC & The English Folk Dance and Song Society (Cecil Sharp House, London). , (HC) Hors Commerce Edition, 151.5 x 172.6cm, Archival inkjet Print Edition of 5. These have entered the Art Collections of: University of Exeter; The Royal Geographical Society (Institute of British Geographers); Flash of Splendor Art CIC & The English Folk Dance and Song Society (Cecil Sharp House, London).