Time Travelling, Back to You to Be With you Now - Hayley Harrison
Sleepwalking in Wick Wood VI 2020. Photo, words and audio recording by Hayley Harrison.
Hope is bringing my bike to a stop at a red traffic light on the afternoon the first lockdown is announced, and looking up to see a young couple dancing wildly in their flat window. It’s then turning to the stranger on the bike next to me and sharing a shy smile. It’s that shy smile dampening my fear and reminding me of here – now.
Hope is working with people living with dementia and witnessing the in joke between residents and carers. It’s the failure of that one workshop, but our determination to return and try again. It’s us returning, and you making him giggle. It’s her playing her harmonica, and some of you singing. It’s you not singing but briefly opening those eyes – checking that you are safe to return to your dozing. It’s time travelling, back to you – to be with you now.
Hope is the dog walkers on the old, abandoned field. Who, back on busy streets, violently ignore each other. Here they gently nod a friendly hello, amongst the spring flowers and hedgerow weeds; nettles, cleavers, hawthorn, sweet violets, chickweed and dog rose. Hope is homemade elderflower cordial. It’s a dandelion growing down dog-shit alley. It’s that one rogue tree at the top of the hill, where we share a beer.
Hayley Harrison is a visual artist working with abandoned materials (human and non-human) and forgotten spaces to start conversations about our disconnection with ‘nature’ and each other. These themes are a starting point for her projects in the community and with older people.