Fallow

Fallow was an installation and performance piece created during a two week residency in Garter Lane in December 2024. All the sound, writing and drawings were made during a two week period. The piece was showcased in A Little Room as a 20 minute work in progress piece. 

In a climate crisis, how can we build a relationship to what we are destroying? Fallow is a series of visual and audio experiments exploring themes of climate inertia. It churns stories from disturbed land soon to be cultivated, uncovering new growth, stagnation and revenge.

 

PART 1 - Fallow

Photographs taken on the Isle of Arran, Scotland, projected onto moving fabric. 

PART 2 - A plum tree 

A fable exploring themes of violence and exploitation of the earth. Drawings projected onto fabric with a spoken word piece.

The riverside is shrouded in a veil of rain. Every evening, I walk the path just south of the river by the old mine. It winds around derelict farmhouses that have collapsed into piles of stones and corrugated iron. It was a pleasant path just 10 minutes' stroll outside the village. As I walk my dog she strides before me, chewing sticks to splinters and occasionally running off to chase birds, she is too heavy afoot to sneak up on anything, which is for the better.

 

 As we walk, I can hear a whisper that grows into a stubborn breeze. Pushing us off the main path down an overgrown trail. The dog runs ahead of me her paws sticky with mud. The mud squelches through the holes in my shoes. The trail is a long curling path that ran perpendicular to the river.

 

The path diminishes to a curved ridge of stones overcome by bracken. In the center is a tree; four meters taller than the surrounding trees. It grew twisted out of a pile of rocks. Its branches drooping heavy with plums, the fruit bobbing against the nettles. I slid into a gap in the thorns beneath the tree to pick a few plums. One thin branch was weighed down with 12 ripe plums, impossibly bent and almost touching the ground. I picked the plums closest to me making the branch slack. The juice drips down my chin as I bite into the plum. It was perfectly ripe and sweetened with the smell of the surrounding honeysuckle. I thanked the tree and promised we would be back to relieve its branches. It waved me away with the wind.

 

Later, I returned with a bag; I filled it with the plums from the low branches. Carefully selecting the ripest fruit. I Lug the bag back to the village, a few plums toppling out on the way. The stray plums roll under bushes. That is how the tree came to be. A stray plum that wandered and grew strong in such a quare place. 

 

Arriving in the village, I go to Murphy’s, a dark pub that sits beside the bridge. It smells of old tobacco and shoe polish. A hushed conversation ends as I approach the door. I dump the bag on the counter at the bar. The auld lads at the bar never seemed to go home. I did not know their names, but it had been months, and it felt rude to ask at this stage. Their hands squeezing and turn the plums then occasionally fumbling for change to hand the bartender. Eyes constantly fixed on the Telly behind the counter. I ordered a pint and watch the pile of fruit diminishing to stalks and stones. When I get up to leave one of the lads put a hand on my arm and offers me some money for the bigger plums.

 

The following day I came back with a ladder, to gather the fruit from the high branches. Some birds had nested in the tree. A greenfinch with a quartzlike beak stared me down. Not budging as I pick the plum from its branch.

On the walk home, I saw a dead robin chick, paralysed beneath a nest. The poor creature must have been pushed by a Cuckoo. The chick's eye and beak froze open. Cuckoos are parasitic birds; they lay their eggs in other birds' nests, getting them to raise and feed their chicks. The cuckoo chicks mimic the sounds of their adoptive siblings as a form of camouflage. Then when they become strong enough, they push the other chicks from the nest. This way they get a monopoly on the food and care of the parents. How cruel to raise their young to displace innocent birds. Is this the only way they know? The dead robin did not answer me, but its feathers shook when I spoke.

 

I brought the last of the plums to the village. The butcher's boy, Henry Flynn, Paulie and Pat waited for me. They gather around me desperate to taste the dregs of the harvest. Mrs. Maguire ran out to me for 3 plums to bake in a pie, the raw pastry still in her hand. I stash a plum in my pocket for later and sold the rest of the bag. My pockets jingled heavy with coins on the way home. I bit into the plum I had pocketed, and I felt a squirm in my mouth. And a bitter taste takes over. I spit a maggot onto the ground it rolls away from me. It too delighted in the sweetness of the fruit. I could not blame it.

It was the best thing I had ever tasted.

 

The next year I hired a young boy to help with picking. He enthusiastically whacked branches to shake plums from the tree. Reaching out his arms like a hurler catching the falling plums. The ones he missed lay bruised on the ground. As the boy hit the tree a branch snaps off, whacking him in the face. It makes a hot purple mark on his left cheek. I give the boy his pay, and the rest of the day off to recover. I continue to Plant the bruised plums hoping they sprout in the new year. I collect the fallen branch and bring it home with the harvest. The next day, I tell the boy that I did not need his help anymore.

 

That winter is bitterly cold. I dry the fallen branch, snap it up and burnt it for heat. The fire burns fragrant, filling the house with a sweet aroma. I go back out to the tree and hack off another branch to burn.

 

By the time the tree grew ripe again the mark on the boy's cheek had healed but there was a faint scar that ran a slit under his eye. I pick all the plums I could myself and sold what I had at a higher price. The bruised plums sprouted but are struggling to keep their leaves. I clear the area around them, uprooting the weeds and bracken to give them space to grow. It was there I discovered a badger's den, which tunneled directly under the tree. The den is littered with plum stones. A badger, disturbed jumped at me, putting its jaws around my leg. Rabbid paws scratched at my shoes. I manage to unclench its bite, by kicking it off me. I ran home. Returning with my dog and my Beretta shotgun. The gun was slung on my back scraping the thin-fingered branches as I made my way to the tree. I crunch the plum stones under my boots as I approached the mouth of the den. I click the chamber open and load two shells. I rest the but against my ribs, then raise the barrel. I saw the culprit. Its teeth and eyes peeking from behind some long grass. Click ... bang. I heard it slump to the ground. My dog ran after the other badger, disappearing down into the den. She emerged in a clearing near the foot of the tree. A small badger in her jaws, shaking it until it snapped then fell limp in her mouth.

 

I go home to nurse my wound. It only began to throb when I got close to the house. The badger had left a nasty cut on my leg that was crusting. I called the dog, but she did not come to eat the scraps of my dinner that night. She probably couldn't hear me over the fierce wind. She often shelters in the straw shed when the weather was bad. She had a little spot burrowed between the square bales. I picture her, cozy and dry sheltered next to the stray cats.

 

The poplars in the yard angrily slap each other. I can hear scraping and snapping of twigs as the storm whips up debris against the roof.

 

I could no longer sleep so I began counting. If each plum tree takes three years to bear fruit and four of the fifteen, I planted survive that would leave me with 500 quid extra each season. Providing I can still charge five euro a punnet. If I save all the money for the next three years, I might be able to pay off what I owe to the bank early. I wrapped myself in a wool blanket and slept by the fire. When I woke the badgers, bite had healed over. It was just a faint crusted mark.

 

When I returned to harvest the tree, it was reduced to a carcass. Some of the bigger branches had snapped off in the storm and what was remaining slumped over bare, the fruit blown clean off. The saplings beneath the tree are mangled. In the mess of broken branches. I see a faint dark shape poking from the mouth of the badger's den... The dog!

The den had partially collapsed on her. Crushing her frame. The rocks beneath the tree like blunt teeth her body in its jaws. She was still. As I turn to leave, I see a plum perfectly intact balanced on a stone.

 

I place it at the foot of the tree and head back to the house.