T

i

r

Tir seeks to deepen an understanding of what it means to belong. It follows five people native to Cornwall, England and asks the question, ‘How do we write our stories into the layers of the land?’. Tir recognises the bodily text scrawled by our movement over the land as a kind of performative graffiti, entrusting place to hold our narratives safe. The rhythmical return to nature jostles these stories from their sleeping chambers in the land and allows for a reawakening of a long lost friendship between human and nature, which in turn promotes mutual healing. Tir seeks to draw these stories together through poetry, analogue photography and illustration, in a re-imagining of the people / place connection.

Soft like silver rain, tickling toes stung by the ice cold lapping.
Skin undulating over silken rocks, again I fall.
Amber refractions lick at my veins,
I simply keep on running.
They call me cold, a sculptor of infinite pathways.

I take this journey every day,
Every hour I lose my way to find a path much the same.
Swept by the broom of salt crusted rocks, white spray.
Spirals become straight as if caught on a nail and pulled taut.
Hungry lurches the crest to fall down again.

Hei Matau, safe journey across oceans, soaked in the yolken sun.
Journeys far flung to churn a buttery sea,
Ragged and rampant ripples hooked in the crag of small summits.
Twice I jumped to find only the brining breeze,
Caressed by waters, lovers words unspoken.