Plans are now underway to preserve the site for scholars and artists, to create a centre where artists can get away from the pressures of the outside world (when you’re stood in these woods the ‘outside world’ can very quickly seem a long way away!). I hope if such a venture is successful that it doesn’t detract from what the site has become, and that the magic isn’t lost in the process.
The following images are my response to this unique site, they are not meant to be an all encompassing documentary ‘overview’ of the location, but rather my personal response, evocations maybe, that capture something of the site’s atmosphere and of its original intent.
Some months later I returned to the site for its annual open day. To my slight discomfort I found myself in a group of Schwitters scholars going on the guided tour. In many ways I felt these visitors were invading what I now regarded as my own special place and I was aware in such circumstances the site deliberately chooses to hide its magic, revealing nothing more than wreckage and the passing of time. Only later when I was left standing alone in the silence did it revert to the magical site I knew and had grown to love and it made me realise the magic was there all the time you just had to be still and quiet enough for it to reach you. (continues...)