We are pleased to announce that we are working with Cobnuts Cooperative to deliver a new environment-focussed commission for Brightlingsea, Harwich and Dovercourt in Tendring, Essex.

For their commission, Finding Lost Nature Words Cobnuts will trial a creative process that focuses on language and words and how they connect us to the natural world. There has been much media coverage of how words relating to nature and the environment appear to be disappearing from use, especially for younger people. This comes at a time of collective anxiety over biodiversity loss and children’s decreasing interaction with wildlife and green spaces.

To dig deeper into the relationship between children’s language and nature, Cobnuts will spend some time with local communities, especially those whose voices are not often heard, to enable nature stories from different childhoods to be told and remembered.

Through a series of oral history sessions, the artists will bring the community together in small groups made up of different generations and cultural backgrounds, to explore their own stories of nature during childhood.

These stories and memories will be made into a special soundscape, and used as inspiration in creative workshops with the community. Lost Nature Words will be crafted and carved into wildlife habitats made from 100% biodegradable, non-toxic materials, such as wood, natural clay and cob. These will feature on an installation for the front wall of Brightlingsea Library, providing habitats and safe spaces for bees and insects, with nearby beds providing the nectar and nesting material these creatures need to sustain life, and for all residents and future generations to enjoy.

Through the project, Cobnuts will harness the power of wildlife and nature to establish common ground between people with different opinions, beliefs, backgrounds and ages. Working with Essex Cultural Diversity Project, they will create a platform on which to tell childhood nature stories, and celebrate the diversity of Brightlingsea and Harwich, giving people the opportunity to come together over stories, memories, craft and nature.

The commission hopes to inform future creative processes for engaging diverse communities across Essex and support the work of the Essex Local Nature Partnership (LNP), of which ECDP is a representative, feeding into the wider Local Nature Recovery Strategy. The project will also support the LNP’s Local Communities Working Group, which is overseen by Susie Jenkins of Cobnuts Co-operative.

Pictured above: Left – The Cob Commuters at Alresford Train Station. Right – The Wall for Wildlife at RSPB Wildlife Garden, Flatford

“Cobnuts Co-operative is delighted at the opportunity given to us by Essex Cultural Diversity Project to bring so many aspects of the Nature Recovery movement in Essex together at Brightlingsea Library. Looking at Nature connection through an exciting multi media project will be a journey with Nature at the heart, and with a destination which sees diverse groups and individuals explore and arrive together at a place which celebrates biodiversity. As creatures discover the wall plaque, and use it in their own way to nest or shelter, all can enjoy Nature being given the final word!” Susie Jenkins, Cobnuts Collective

About Cobnuts

Cobnuts was founded in 2017 by Susie Jenkins, Simon Peecock and Florence Peecock to build bridges between the art world and the natural world. Using their backgrounds in community workshops, art, youth work and ceramics they have spun a web between themselves, community groups and conservation body’s. Armed with four small grants they ventured out into the wild, holding clay and cob workshops where people could get creative and build artworks for the benefit of their native wildlife. In 2019 Cobnuts expanded to include Emily Baverstock (natural fabric dying and weaving), and Catherine Herbert (lidar and digital map making). Cobnuts introduced conservation to craft with 4YOUth Club nature-based activities and the Conservation & Craft Club. And in 2023, Cobnuts Co-operative joined forces with Brightlingsea Nature Network and many other local groups to run a town-wide Nature Recovery Project in their home town of Brightlingsea in Essex.

cobnuts-coop.co.uk

This project is part of Essex Cultural Diversity Project’s NPO commissioning series, funding by Art Council England