Fruit Routes Graphic - Anne-Marie Culhane

Fruit Routes - graphic from the Fruit Routes Recipes pamphlet by Anne-Marie Culhane

FRUIT ROUTES

I've been working on Fruit Routes since 2011 with artist and environmental activist and my long time collaborator Anne-Marie Culhane who conceived Fruit Routes and drives it forward.

So many other artists have joined us on Fruit Routes and contributed time and works, ideas and interventions and the Fruit Route now has a life of its own beginning to spider out from the Loughborough University Campus into and across Loughbohemia.

Paul Conneally
(Little Onion)

On the Allotment - Mile End Arts Pavilion

'On the Allotment'
One Off Ceramic Tile Series
Paul Conneally
Mile End Arts Pavilion, London, 2006

"Allotment holders on the Windmill Allotments in Nottingham talked with me about their time 'on the allotment' and shared with me ten words or short phrases that came to mind on that day, at that time, on the allotment. I then used these to create 'wordsearch portraits' of them. Their words were coloured using a strict system approach with each wordsearch being both a portrait and a poem of that person on their allotment at that time. The portraits were initially laid down on concrete paving stones within Windmill Community Gardens and then made into one off ceramic tiles which formed part of The Renewability exhibition at Mile End Arts Pavilion in London. After the show the tiles were returned to Windmill Community Gardens and installed on an open shed structure to become 'The Portrait Shed' where they slowly changed with the weather and the seasons eventually cracking, breaking, becoming crocks for plant pots."

Paul Conneally


The Portrait Shed - Paul Conneally 2007

Anne-Marie Culhane and Rama Gupta at Loughborough University Fruit Routes

Artist and environmental activist, Anne-Marie Culhane, pictured with environmentalist and Green Party pioneer, Rama Gupta, during the artist led walk around Loughborough University 'Fruit Route'

Fruit Routes is an ongoing artwork conceived by Culhane that involves planting fruit trees and bushes around the university campus along with other artistic and environmental interventions.

The project urges users of the University to 'EAT YOUR CAMPUS'

Photograph: Paul Conneally

October 2015

Paul Conneally

SKEP hive mind - Loughborough University Fruit Routes 2015

Artist Paul Conneally during SKEP Loughborough University June 2015

SKEP

hive mind

Performative, Participative, Collaborative Installation

Anne-Marie Culhane and Paul Conneally

Fruit Routes Loughborough University

18th June 2015

We share our lives with and our very existence depends on the bees - a keystone species in the natural world.

Building on the tradition of Telling the Bees, where beekeepers informed the bees of significant events in their communities or lives, you are invited to share something of your personal thoughts on community, cooperation and the future of our relationship with the ecological community (animals, insects, plants).

Speak out loud

Share your thoughts in silence

Write in the book

Artist Anne-Marie Culhane during SKEP Loughborough University June 2015

SKEP is part of the ongoing Fruit Routes / Eat Your Campus work at Loughborough University in June 2015. SKEP was one element in a day of events and interventions coordinated by Culhane that included a wild tea party, visits to the campus apiary and an evening of moth catching and watching. SKEP offered a space for thought and quiet in the presence of a listener, SKEP, Culhane or Conneally sat passively, silent, wearing a traditional British woven basket beehive, a skep, on their head.

Anne-Marie Culhane on Art as Collaboration

Click the above to listen to Anne-Marie Culhane in convervasion with Rob Hopkins talk about art as collaboration and her wider work.


Anne-Marie Culhane during Fruit Routes at Loughborough University Photo: Paul Conneally

A Spade in the Barefoot Orchard

A Spade in the Barefoot Orchard

A spade used during the February planting of an additional 32 trees in the Fruit Routes Barefoot Orchard at Loughborough University. The planting was followed by a gong ceremony and performance, new type of wassail, to celebrate and bless the trees, the ground.

The planting and gong ceremony form part of artist and environmental activist Anne-Marie Culhane's ongoing work Fruit Routes supported by Loughborough University Sustainability Team through Jo Hasbury-Shields

Paul Conneally
Loughborough University Barefoot Orchard
February 2015

Stonehouse Seedstore - Anne-Marie Culhane 2014

Stonehouse Seedstore created by Anne Marie Culhane in Stonehouse, Plymouth, UK.

‘Anne Marie has been working with residents from across the area to collect individual stories about our relationships to plants through growing and eating. The Seedstore also includes plants that are, or have been important in the story of Stonehouse, gathered through conversations with residents and historians. She has use these to create a seed store as a community resource, a connection to the natural world and a celebration of diversity in Stonehouse.’

The plan now is to keep the Store at Union Corner for people to see and read the stories, to go out to events, and for the swapping of seeds.

Artist Anne-Marie Culhane - Fruit Routes Harvest 2014

Artist Anne-Marie Culhane during her Fruit Routes Harvest Back to Back walk with fellow Simone Kenyon at Loughborough University.

Paul Conneally
Loughborough
October 2014

Barefoot Blindfold - Choreographed by Birdsong

The blind man's guide,
Meek and neglected thing, of no renown!
Soon will peep forth the primrose, ere it fades
Friends shall I have at dawn, blackbird and thrush
To rouse me, and a hundred warblers more!

from 'The Recluse' by William Wordsworth

Artist Paul Conneally during his and Anne-Marie Culhane's Barefoot Blindfold piece at 5am on Loughborough University Fruit Route.

Eleven were slow walked by Anne-Marie Culhane into an orchard section of her ongoing Fruit Route work at Loughborough University to take part in Culhane and Conneally's 'Barefoot Blindfold.

Participants chose a fruit tree sat against it and were blindfolded in order to foucus their senses away from the visual for the the first half hour and then still in slience to spend the next half hour without the bliindfold recording their emotions / reactions to the fruit route at dawn.

Conneally invited them during the blindfold session to allow the sounds to choreograph the movements of their upper body and arms. This is a short section filmed by Miriam Keye of Conneally being choreographed by nature in fact by birdsong.

This is only a small part of the whole of Barefoot Blinfold but offers perhaps opportunities to explore the idea of being choreographed by nature further in other works to come. Perhaps we already are.

Wild Tea Party - Culhane and Conneally Loughborough Fruit Route 2014

Fruit Routes Wild Tea Party - Culhane and Conneally 2014

An ongoing element of my work with Anne-Marie Culhane is our Wild Tea Parties.

They involve collecting leaves and flowers from around the area where the party is to take place which are made into tea and served with cakes, scones and jam at the party itself.

The party becomes a talking shop where specific themes might be developed organically as locally foraged wild teas are drunk and cakes are eaten.

At some sites the wild tea party goers are static while in others, as at Fruit Routes, the tea drinkers change, some staying an hour or so, others leaving after a drink and a chat to replaced by curious folks drawn in as they are passing by.

Along with the tea and cake we usually introduce another element, tasseography (reading the tea leaves) or some other manual skill - here we made sugar ropes that would be used to attract moths at our moth viewing night later in the day or back at participants homes.

Each Wild Tea Party is planned specifically for the site (inside or out) and to encourage thought and talk around the commissioning group's current concerns and themes.

Involving participants in the collecting of the wild teas adds to the piece. The artists taking them for a guided foraging walk of the locality before the actual wild tea party.

Culhane and Conneally will consider all interesting suggestions and offers to host a Wild Tea Party you can contact us via Love and Barley by emailing:

loveandbarley@gmail.com

Paul Conneally

June 2014

METAL RUST BRICK No.1

METAL RUST BRICK No.1 - Paul Conneally 2014

One of three appropriated metal, rust and brick sculptures on permanent exhibition from July 4th 2014 Loughborough University, UK.

Anne-Marie Culhane - Environmental Artist

Anne-Marie Culhane - Environmental Artist

Paul Conneally

Loughborough 2014

"I draw inspiration from the cycles of nature and seasons; permaculture (learning from natural systems); environmental and ecological concerns or questions and listening and responding to people, landscapes and particular sites (urban or rural). I am motivated to work with others to reduce the harm we are inflicting on our planet; to increase understanding our place in the family of things and to bring to life positive visions now and for the future."

Anne-Marie Culhane

Find out more about Anne-Marie and her work here: Anne-Marie Culhane

Leicester: The Edible City - Paul Conneally 2013/14

New Walk Centre - Paul Conneally 2014

I'm now putting together the letter requesting outline planning permission to demolish Leicester City Council's New Walk Centre and change the space it currently occupies into a community orchard.

This takes forward my initial thoughts from 2013 some of which are reported below. 

Here's a link to the original: Leicester the World's First Edible City

"After working closely with my long time collaborator, artist activist, Anne-Marie Culhane, on her ongoing Fruit Routes work across Loughborough University campus, which has now, as EAT YOUR CAMPUS, won the Guardian Sustainability Award 2014, my thoughts on space and how it might be used creatively in a city centre have evolved.

I propose that the Leicester City Council New Walk Centre be demolished and replaced with a large community orchard. The roads and paths from the orchard into and out from the city centre, including the historic New Walk itself, will be planted with fruit trees too. 

Just as Anne-Marie Culhane proposes that Loughborough University becomes the world's first edible campus, I propose that Leicester should become the world's first edible city and that Anne-Marie be invited to work with myself and the City to help make this happen.

LEICESTER THE WORLD'S FIRST EDIBLE CITY"

'Solidarity' - Fruit Routes Loughborough University - The Second Planting

Student volunteers prepare to dig holes and plant more fruit trees on the Fruit Route at Loughborough University, UK.

Fruit Routes is an ongoing project conceived by artist and environmental activist Anne-Marie Culhane.

Photograph: 'Spades' Paul Conneally, Loughborough, 2014

Topping Out 'Kiss the Gable' - Paul Conneally & Anne-Marie Culhane

TOPPING OUT – KISS THE GABLE – Paul Conneally and Anne-Marie Culhane 2013 Photo: Kev Ryan

Cultural Forager, artist and poet, Paul Conneally, anoints a garden Shed during Conneally and Culhane’s ‘Topping Out Kiss the Gable’ ritual performance piece at Loughborough University Fruit Routes Harvest Celebration.

The shed stands on the LANDSCAPING AND GARDENING SOCIETY plot at Loughborough University and was recently erected to replace the original shed which was burnt down earlier in the year.

‘TOPPING OUT Kiss the Gable’ is based on the ceremony of Topping Out that builders undertake when the highest point of a building is completed. In Conneally and Culhane’s version, switches of tree and other plants are bound together and placed at the apex of the shed. The hanging plant material includes rowan, holly and bay twigs to ward of bad spirits and bring good luck to the shed and all who use it.

Two ladders were placed against the gable and people at the Fruit Routes Harvest Celebration were invited to climb one ladder, kiss the apex of the gable and say a few words if they felt that they wanted to while at the same time being anointed by Conneally, who is up the other ladder, with Apple juice freshly pressed on site that afternoon.

After Topping Out and Kissing the Gable the gathered people moved to a bonfire where food, drink and conversation carried on into the night with music being provided by the band Solana.