The last couple of weeks have been hectic as the project I have been working on with the National Trust has been nearing its end. On Thursday my project partners and I took part in the launch event of the Brigstow Institute, our funders, at the Wills Memorial Building in Bristol. We constructed an installation to illustrate the activities that we have been carrying out over the summer, to showcase the Holnicote Estate and to engage people with ‘spirit of place‘. We aimed to ‘bring the outdoors indoors’ and made a den which was added to by members of the public through the day.
The event highlighted the diversity of projects that Brigstow has funded this year. They ranged from a project that mapped histories of public space, to one aiming to encourage dog walkers to pick up dog poo, to an investigation into cycling in Bristol and of course our Holnicote investigation.
The aim of the Brigstow Institute is to bring researchers from all disciplines together with a range of partners to experiment with new ways of living and being. It is, I think, a vitally important network and will engage with work that is necessary in the age we live in. There needs to be capacity for research to be carried out that stretches beyond the walls of the academy and involves communities and non-academic partners. Brigstow allows for this to happen. It was very exciting on Thursday to see what can happen when you put these people together.
Thank you Brigstow for allowing us to experiment in Exmoor this summer. The next challenge is to make sure that our partnership has a thriving future.
The Holnicote Estate has been a wonderful place to work this summer. If you haven’t ventured out to it before, walked on Dunkery Hill or wandered through Horner Wood, I thoroughly recommend it.
Images credit: Nigel Hester
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