2019    Nidder (Further Reading)
NIDDER: RHYME and REASON


‘It is not down on any map; true places never are.’
Herman Melville
from Moby-Dick, or The Whale


But it is; and it is. Mapped and Verity.
And it is not; and it is not. Verity and Mapped.

What does Art? and Why? It takes place. And it takes place to another place for the purposes of transformation in the maker and the taken, in the making and the made, in those who see and hear it, in the after.

Nidderdale is. And is Nidder. In England's North, North Yorkshire. It is the Valley of the Nidd, which flows South underground. That is to say, it carries its message - and its force, its gift of life - out by covert passage to what we call, and where we others live, which is: the Wider World.

So, settling the truth of this place commands a telling also by other means.

In the late days of 2017, artist Stanley Schtinter was commissioned to reveal the overlooked glory of Nidderdale. His tools: 16mm stock; a microphone, and almost no money. All three were indispensable, because they distilled invention as whisky is.

Who is Yorkshire?
Where is Yorkshire?
In any place there are three places: On, Above, Below.
and all are populated.

So, on: Menwith Hill, landed from the new imperial elsewhere, visible and invisible both at once, an all seeing open/closed eye; the hills have ears. How to resist this? By becoming fully human, by counting and accounting these intrusions. By being Lindis Percy.
So, below: Stumps Cross Cave, the gape black mouth that speaks from inside the body. Properly to hear its words, one must enter the hole and listen until one speaks in its tongue. How to effect this? By joining its night and its silence (its groan of geology) for 105 days. By being Geoff Workman.
So, above: Yorkshire is South Asia. Faith knows no borders and falls like rain on any welcome ground. Sufism is as much Nidder as grass or sheep. Music is radical air (air with intent), wind that sings in voices not its own. How to make this sound? By being the Brothers Hameed.

They all dwell and breathe, they also, in the weather. What else is the distressed surface of the image but the experience of an affective climate? What else is weather but permanent flux, constant threshold? What else is a film but an episode in time and space?
Understand this meadow-moment of the made with the wholeness of the body, with all the senses currently known - and those still felt but not yet named - and only then with the mind's classroom student, who follows its prior-mentioned guides, canine-loyal to their interests.

In short and in summation: don't say it, sing it; sing it into being.
PraiseSong of the Autumn (maybe Fall) and all seasons still to come.
In the shadows yes, it is somewhat colder.
But look how, from the darkness, how bright the bright world is.

- Gareth Evans, 2019

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Mark