Valerie Drew / Networks and loose knots…

I take time out of my holiday to walk alone by the river in the woods.  I listen to the sound of running water and smell the damp peaty moss and I am reminded of our time in GlenProsen.  I think about the intensity of the NC experience throughout the past year: our meetings, the residentials, the tipi, wood smoke, the solos, my readings, the writing and the people I met.

I remember the ‘network’ I wove from reeds knotted with grasses during one of our creative activities in an attempt to capture some of the complexity of the pathways of the participants in and out of the NC2 project throughout the year.  I held it together with knotted grasses to indicate the interactions between the group, the to-ing and fro-ing of people and their thoughts and experiences.  I photographed it on the river to portray the flow of ideas.   I realise now that structure was too simplistic…

So I decide to start again.  I select a diverse range of vegetation to represent the participants still actively involved in NC2: I collect twigs, some fresh and flexible, some more brittle, some encrusted with lichen; a selection of plants – some more woody, some in flower.  These items seem to exemplify the diversity of the participants and their experiences …

I create a new network, but the dearth of dried grasses as this time of year means that tying knots is more difficult as the fresh grass is much springier, consequently the knots are looser.  I attempt to lift the ‘network’ to the river to take some photographs and lose some of the pieces… The network is smaller now; people withdraw from groups for many different reasons…

I place the network on the plank which serves as a bridge over the stream.  It is only on viewing the photograph later that I am acutely aware of an overlay grid of wire fencing on the wooden bridge –it seems to represent the rigidity of some of the background structures we work within…

I attempt to photograph the structure on the water as before but the water is fast flowing – an indication of the temporal quality of our busy personal and professional lives…  The network is more fragile now and the knots begin to unravel – some of the pieces are carried off quickly, some stay loosely linked together and travel more slowly along the side of the river bank…  just as participants will take different routes and move at different speeds as they move on from NC2…

I watch the structure disappear from view.  I think about some of the changes which have crept into my life, personal and professional, as a result of my participation in Natural Change 2.  I believe that each of us has moved on with different but more dynamic understanding.  I wonder how this will impact on our wider personal and professional networks…