“Quest” is an ongoing environmental Quest by artist Jan Hogarth which explores our relationship with environment, land and water. Jan’s working practice grows out of a deep love of the land (in the broadest sense of the word, by land I mean water, trees, animals, mountains etc), an empathy for it and a deep desire to heal it. Jan has been working with Sheila Pollock who is a practitioner in the healing arts for over 30 years. And invites others who love the land to become involved in the environmental Art Quests.
In Celtic tradition healing wells, springs and the sources of rivers were thought to have healing and sacred properties.
“Quest” explores rituals and the truths behind ritual to create and invent new environmental Art rituals that seek to heal the environment. The idea of looking for the source of the Nith came from a local rumour that the Lynors from Dumfries Guid Nychburris took spring water from the source of the Nith and carried it with them when they rode the boundaries of the town. Myself and my friend Sheila who has been working in the healing arts went in search of the source of the Nith which is at Dalmelington in Ayrshire and found an environmental massacre in the form of open cast mines and landfill sites there with no access to the source due to the open cast mine operators. It was shocking how could you heal this river when the source was an example of how we take from the land with no empathy for our own energy consumption? This seemed to be a metaphor for the wider climate change problem. The problem is us and out lack of love for the non human, our lack of reverence for nature, water and the land.
Sheila has worked with Jan on the Quests project and has been looking at the energy of water and its places and exploring how to lift that energy, how to lift the vibration. Having dowsed there is evidence that the vibration was raised in the water she has worked on in Quest 1 and that improvement has remained. The Nith is a huge challenge because of its source in a open cast mine. Sheila and Jan will be talking about this on Thursday evening at the Stove about our work.
Quest is a part of SUBMERGE, an exhibition as part of ArtCOP Dumfries, which runs daily from 10-5pm until Saturday, 12th December.
Jan and Sheila will be talking about Quest as part of A Question of Scale, on Thursday 10th December from 6pm.