Bodmin moor Gazette

The Bodmin moor Gazette is an ongoing vernacular photographic archive. It has been the start point for the 3 multi-media projects featured on the website. It is continuously updated and reorganised.
It is an (An)archive. Connections are made between groupings of media by how they are encountered: initiating new thinking. The best explanation I have heard for operation of an (An)archive process could be that you changed the direction of your walk every time the wind blew at a different speed which would give a different perspective of where you were walking. Or you throw your pictures and writing on the floor and see how you react to the way they touch each other. I suppose it is an arm of surrealism. The subconscious reaction where ideas come into your head. There is stuff on the net if you want to know more.
People are interested in the concept of “Ancient” sites for a lot of reasons. The association, the connection. I like the sedimented history and adding to it with my own. For me, It’s the here and now at a place. A place significant for lots of people, animals and plants for a lot of reasons. Most of which we will never know. That’s okay because I was there too with people I know and love. Not all the places included are in Cornwall or sometimes not even places. It may just train of thought.
The gazette will be updated, and more sites added with notes / prose as I go along. I have been striding about on Bodmin moor for over 20 years. It would be easy to go down the “mysterious folklore” route with these places, but the Gazette isn’t really about that.
This gazette is vernacular. It is visits with my children as they have grown up. Solo walks. Getting lost, getting very wet, covered in shit, getting to know certain animals. The ravens becoming familiar with you and following you around to see what you’re up to. Ditto the horses (and even sheep and cows in the more remote places). Its almost bringing horses and ponies home with you. Finding dead things everywhere. Other people’s magic. ashes, love, gesture. Lost gloves.

The animals and plants that have a relationship with the sites too. Part of their mythology their cultural relationship with the land scape. The weather. The context. The contact. Time. Completism.
Bodmin moor is still a hidden gem. There are complete altered Neolithic / bronze age “landscapes” despite heavy industry and farming. Their geographic upland location has protected them. People have recognised their significance, and they have survived as part of the fabric and are still relevant as their context changes.
No one really knows the context of these sites in terms of how they integrated into society culture beyond applying other anthropological information to them. People who take the time to visit them add to the story and keep them alive.
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