A Walk in the Park

Having the dogs in Leicester means regular walks at the local park, so I decided to try a different form of colour grid diarying making the most of these regular visits to the same location.

Initially I thought I might just see what caught my attention in the park, marking the locations of each of the four gateways - Leicester having a lot of 'gates' to the city and to various parks, which is very different to the places where I would walk in the southwest.
But the park is very much a place to be in, and it was only whilst walking round that I realised I'd completely forgotten about the gates. Whilst that could make it even more interesting to explore, I wanted to go with something that I would tend to notice every time I visit, and that, of course, is the trees.
Last year a particular circle of trees became an important place to visit and spend time in, or even just glance across at, in some way becoming my anchor or reference point within the park.
This autumn I have found them to 'call' far less, and instead I found myself noticing a particular tree on the Northern walkway of the park as though I had not really noticed it before. I'd seen it there, noticed its relationship to things around - bench nearby, edge of wooded area, and so forth. But i hadn't really felt a personal connection with this tree. Until recently. I've started to notice more about its branches, layers of coloured bark, size - it's actually one of the biggest most mature trees in the park, though not the tallest. And so i decided to mark my meeting with the tree, and open up a dialogue of sorts between myself and this specific living thing in that place, and another tree of the same kind, probably the same age, a different shape and character, opposite it across the grass to the Southern walkway of the park.
For the last few days I have photographed each tree and made a colour grid expressing something of what I notice and feel at that place at that time. The leaves are still colourful on the trees, although the wind and weather and changing light are beginning to have a more noticeable effect on the park.
Whilst this is not a direct 'conversation between trees' as in the Active Ingredient project, it is certainly a dialogue centred around trees - of a personal encounter and the relationship between things that are unique yet in common and the interaction that another brings to the scene. And maybe an interesting way to continue to explore the nature of separation of information and the dynamic process of revisiting places over time.