On Our Doorsteps: Hold a Leaf by Zakiya Mackenzie
Transcript
The artwork that you can see here presents a text by writer Zakiya Mackenzie. It is one of 6 large artworks presented on 3meter x 1 and a half meter billboards around the Sweet Briar Marshes Nature Reserve in Norwich as part of a nationwide project called On Our Doorsteps.
Filling the billboard with large, green letters, Zakiya’s writing reads:
Hold a leaf, a grass, a flower, a stone
Or take a gulp of air
Talk back to the birds
Announce that you are here
This is how it feels to belong
Behind Zakiya’s text we see a black & white photographic background. In it we see a beautiful meadow, thick with all different kinds of plants, flowers. And grasses. There is a profusion of different shaped leaves and stems giving the photograph a rich and complex texture. Close to us, at the bottom of the image, we can make out the details of many of these different plant forms even though the black and white image sometimes reveals only the white outline of a leaf or flower, like a cut-out against the profusion of other shapes. Further away, the detail grows hazy. At the top edge of the image we see that the meadow is bordered by a thick, tangled hedgerow, with brambles and hawthorns showing their white blossom.
The image is a black and white photograph, but in the bottom right corner of the image we see a narrow, horizontal rectangle made up of different colours. To the right we see different shades of dark green in wide bands. Moving to the left we see bands of lighter green and at the left-hand end of the rectangle, we see a vivid yellow and narrow bands of light and deeper pink. Maybe these are the colours we would have seen in we were there when the photograph was taken. Perhaps we can imagine them back into the black and white image.
This was one of Zakiya Makenzie’s texts for On Our Doorsteps. She created two other artworks which can also be seen around Sweet Briar Marshes. In March Zakiya Mackenzie spent three afternoons walk with a group of people from local communities in Norwich and across Norfolk. They included members of the Norfolk Queer Birders Group, members of the Friends of Train Wood, volunteers who have worked with the Norfolk Wildlife Trust and others who know and love Sweet Briar Marshes. They walked, talked and wrote together, sharing their reflections on the landscape and what it means to feel connected to such a place. You can find more of the writing that came out of these sessions through the project page on the Norfolk & Norwich Festival’s website.
The project was developed and produced by We Live Here, in collaboration with the Norfolk & Norwich Festival and the Norfolk Wildlife Trust. It is funded by Arts Council England and the Finnish Institute.