Terling, 2022Land Barriers is an ongoing photographic series capturing public signs proclaiming an area, road, track, grounds are private.
The series takes its title from a 1959 article written by Ethel M. Edmunds for The Essex Countryside where Ethel explains all the physical barriers they overcome when traversing the Essex countryside, from red flags, notices, cattle, flooded roads, rivers, lack of transport and private land.
In 2022 as part of an Instagram Live for The Old Waterworks, I shared PLOT related research, recited Ethals text and shared some land barrier photos. You can watch the insta live here
Margete - 2025
Ulverston (3) - 2025
Ulverston (2) - 2025
Ulverston - 2025
Liskeard, Duloe - 2025
Great Wakering - 2024
Barling Magna (2) - 2024
Barling Magna (1) - 2024
Saffron Walden, Wicken Bonhunt (2) - 2024
Saffron Walden, Wicken Bonhunt (1) - 2024
Saffron Walden, Rickling (2) - 2024
Saffron Walden, Rickling (1) - 2024
Saffron Walden, Clavering (2) - 2024
Saffron Walden, Clavering (1) - 2024
West Okement River - 2024
Westcliff on Sea (2) - 2024
Bristol (6), 2023
Bristol (5), 2023
Bristol (4), 2023
Bristol (3), 2023
Bristol (2), 2023
Bristol, 2023
Westcliff on Sea (2), 2023
Colchester (2), 2023
Rayleigh (2), 2023
Rayleigh, 2023
Thorndon Country Park (3), 2023
Westcliff-on-Sea, 2023
Southend on Sea (3), 2023
Rayleigh, Thundersley (2), 2023
Rayleigh, Thundersley, 2023
Southend on Sea (2), 2023
Herongate, 2023
Ingrave, 2023
Thorndon Country Park (2), 2023
Thorndon Country Park, 2023
Shoeburyness (3), 2023
Shoeburyness (2), 2023
Langdon Hills, (3) 2023
Langdon Hills (2), 2023
Laindon, 2023
Hullbridge (3), 2023
Hullbridge, (2) 2023
Hullbridge, 2023
Langdon Hills, Basildon, 2023
Fairstead, 2022
Cherry Orchard, 2022
Fairstead, 2022
Southend On Sea, 2022
Eastwood, 2022
Rochford, 2022
Rochford, 2022
Colchester, 2022
Paglesham, 2022
Paglesham (2), 2022
Paglesham (3), 2022
Brompton, 2022
Hockley, 2022
Hockley (2), 2022
Hawkwell, 2022
Shoeburyness, 2022
Hyde Park, 2022
Plot 1 to 42
Matt Emulsion on Linen Board, 50 x 40cm
Plot 43 to 84
Matt Emulsion on Linen Board, 50 x 40cm
Plot 85 to 126
Matt Emulsion on Linen Board, 50 x 40cm
Plot 127 to 168
Matt Emulsion on Linen Board, 50 x 40cm
Plot 169 to 210
Matt Emulsion on Linen Board, 50 x 40cm
Matt Emulsion on Linen Board, 50 x 40cm
Plot 211 to 252
Matt Emulsion on Linen Board, 50 x 40cm
Matt Emulsion on Linen Board, 50 x 40cm
Care Package
The Old Waterworks has recently produced a care package as part of a recent artist develpment project, which has been created by three studio artists: Shaun C Badham, Charlotte Hamilton and Philippa Stewart. Each care package is sent to support members of the community who are not able to attend our events in person. We believe that access to art is an important part of all our lives and we want to make sure people dont miss out because of inaccessible environments, caring responsibilities or vulnerable health conditions.
For my care package I enclosed a handmade 20-piece colour chart composing of 19 custom greens which have been colour matched from The Old Waterworks, car park ivy. These greens were initially produced for a text-based sculpture reading This Plot is Not for Sale, presented tonally from light to dark. Each green was utilised for an individual letter and comes with its own unique code. You will be one of 20 people who will know these codes, and if you ever wanted to use any of these greens domestically or artistically you can take the code to a local Dulux and can get the green re-produced for yourself. Happy painting and making.
This Plot is Not for Sale
20 custom colour swatched green emulsion on marine plywood letters upon timber wooden frame with sandbag supports
L 380cm x H168cm (frame) plus H40cm (letters)
For The Old Waterworks August Open Studios 2022, I installed a sculpture reading This Plot is Not for Sale in the car park made up of 20 custom colour swatched greens from the Ivy in the TOW car park. The greens were put in tonal order making a gradient
This phrase is embedded in both protest placards from the plotland history to current day cultural groups and communities; who care, work and tend to local land even under precarious contexts of past, present or future land threats. There are many important projects and people, where the land itself or the land surrounding their building is intrinsic to the work they do. This was evident on The Open Studios and the role the TOW garden plays for both humans and nature who rely on the space, from the bee boxes, to studio holders Anna Lukala and Philippa Stewart who grow an array of dye plants, Emma Edmondson who makes handmade bricks in the car park, to An English Garden benches by Gabriella Hirst and Warren Harper, where many conversations are had.
We are all custodians of this land.
The Peoples Landscape: Podcast
Shaun C. Badham with Fay Armstrong, Ron Bates, Pauline Beckwith, Tilly Hogrebe, Ray How, Kamil Pachalko and Philippa Stewart.
17 November 2021 to 16 January 2022
The People’s Landscape podcast aims to look at how the ownership of local land in South Essex has changed over the years from farmers, land speculators, plotlanders to current day. We hope to better understand the synergy between both these past communities and today’s local allotment societies and community growing projects. By tracing the demise of the plotlanders from compulsive purchasing schemes to slower encroaching commercial developments, what can this history tells us about today’s precarity around community land ownership and what the future holds for these groups who care and work the local land today. The podcast brings together current day conversations and historical accounts.
A podcast by Shaun C. Badham with Fay Armstrong, Ron Bates, Pauline Beckwith, Tilly Hogrebe, Ray How, Kamil Pachalko and Philippa Stewart. Edited by Gabriella Milanese, Realm Video.
You can listen to the podcast here
Contributors & Credits
Thanks so much to our incredible contributors:
Kamil Pachalko – Southend in Transition Community Allotment – https://southendintransition.co.uk/
Ron Bates – Allotment Holder at Manchester Drive and Trustee for Trust Links – https://www.trustlinks.org/
Ray How – Treasurer and Site Manager at Gaynes Park Manners Way Allotment and Gardens Association – https://gpmwallotments.co.uk/
Fay Armstrong (Secretary) and Pauline Beckwith (deputy chair) of Westcliff Land Cultivation Society at Springfield Drive Allotments – https://wlcsallotment.wordpress.com/
Tilly Hogrebe – Member of Southend in Transition and Urban and Coastal Forager – https://www.instagram.com/soswildfood/
Philippa Stewart – Allotment Holder at Springfield Drive and Artist – https://www.philippastewart.com/
Focal Point Gallery
Tip of the Iceberg
12 September 2021 to 9 January 2022
For Tip of the Iceberg I have been working on PLOT: The Peoples’ Landscape which explores the social, cultural and historical connections between current day society run allotments in the Borough of Southend and historical alternative uses of land such as the Plotlanders (Plotlands refers to small pieces of land laid out in regular plots on which a number of self-built settlements were established in the south-east of England from the late 1800s and up to the Second World War). The Plotlanders could be described as both a community, a movement and a way of life which although no longer exists in the same way, could be seen to live on through today’s allotment societies; particularly through a DIY sensibility, growing your own and community care via working the land.
This new body of work includes a series of map drawings of five society run allotments developed through an ongoing collaborative process with the community who work the land. Through these conversations a series of oral histories will be captured and made available as a digital podcast, exploring the thematical links between the communities and time periods. Once complete each drawing will be re-printed and gifted back to the allotment societies as a record.
Reviews
‘The Tip of the Iceberg’ by Ellen Mara De Wachter for the Contemporary Art Society’s Friday Dispatch. Read it here
Photography Anna Lukala
