Lone Women in the Woods
17 May 2019
The View and Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge
Starting and ending at Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge in Epping Forest, this unique experience will enable women to take part on a journey through the forest from twilight to nightfall embracing and challenging fears and creating new narratives.
Led by artist Clare Archibald (Lone Women and Flashes of Wilderness) and joined by writers, and walkers Louisa Thomsen Brits, Carole Wright and Alison O’Connor (Bushcraft and forest expert), participants will learn about forest history, artists relationship with walking both urban and wild places, and the unique ecology of Epping Forest.
The walk will be followed by a talk at Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge led by Clare with readings and reflections and a Q&A.
It’s a unique opportunity to experience the forest from twilight to darkness reaching out to women who otherwise might not venture into the woods to walk.
Lone Women in the Woods is part of The People's Forest season - a series of events exploring our relationship with Epping Forest, interrogating the deep bond we have with forests and woodland, and how this relationship is culturally determined.
Image credit: Hannah Boyle
Event categories:
How to get there
Venue: The View and Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge, 6 Rangers Road, Chingford, London, E4 7QH
By bus: 97, 179, 212, 313, 379, 385, 397, 444, N26
By train: Chingford (London Overground)
Who's Involved
Clare Archibald
Clare is a Scottish writer & poet interested in ideas of place, loss, verbal expression & movement, the interplay of form and collaboration. Her writing & photography have been widely published, nationally and internationally, most recently in the Stinging Fly. She has a pamphlet of words & images forthcoming with Gorse Editions, and is contributing 3 chapters to a book on architecture & the imagination in Manchester to be published in 2020 by Manchester University Press. Clare curates the collaborative Lone Women in Flashes of Wilderness project which has previously been commissioned for Sanctuary Lab 2017 and the Not Quite Light Festival 2018.
Alison O'Connor
Alison O'Connor has had a lifelong passion for the outdoors which has developed into her career. She has worked in and around London as a Ranger on a variety of Greenspaces with ten years at Epping Forest as Forest Keeper and then Community Liaison Officer. She now works part time as a Ranger for the London Wildlife Trust at Walthamstow Wetlands and runs Tinder Sticks CIC with her partner. Tinder Sticks is a social enterprise dedicated to getting more people outdoor confident. Alison does this through bushcraft and nature immersion at Lee Valley Park and Fineshade Wood for Forestry England. For more information.
Carole Wright
Carole Wright is a creative South Londoner who’s career takes in projects as diverse as creating community gardens, beekeeping, walk leading, housing activism and working with Tate Modern and other Art organisations in Europe. Carole has just been announced as a Community Walker for The Big Lunch/Eden project communities initiative.
Louisa Thomsen Brits
Louisa Thomsen Brits is an author, outdoor swimmer, walker and mother of four. Under a full moon, she follows the tracks that crisscross the South Downs where she lives. Her most recent book, Path, is a prose poem about reciprocity between humans and landscape.Her work is informed by silence, poetic expression and movement; by interests in deep ecology, art and craft that spring from our connection with nature, and the seam between domestic and wild. Louisa writes about our communion with the natural world, interconnectedness and the rhythms and patterns that unite and define all living things.
