The Thicks - yesterday's tomorrow

a collection of 88 images each image 30cm x 30cm The Thicks - yesterday’s tomorrow is a series of photographs made in Staverton Forest, an ancient oak forest near the Suffolk coast. A small area of the forest, The Thicks, has been unmanaged for the last two hundred years and now contains many ancient oaks and oak stumps overgrown by holly and birch. Recognition of the value of the biodiversity supported by the decaying oaks is widely acknowledged and makes The Thicks a great and very early example of re-wilding. A landscape that assists our fight against climate change, and so a significant landscape for our future. The Thicks - yesterday’s tomorrow is a collection of photographic portraits of the ancient oak stumps. Photographing the oaks objectively and displaying them as a grid brings an order to an overgrown chaotic landscape. The grid encourages a comparative study of the individual oaks and collectively they emphasise the importance of this very valuable landscape. The Thicks - yesterday’s tomorrow suggests an environmental time - a time concerned with the past, the present and the future. “….moving and provocative because they say so much about all of life and about our lives.” Mark Cocker 2018 Quote from the exhibition catalogue for Snape Maltings Concert Hall Gallery exhibition.