Five Questions for... Alison Pouliot

By Sara Bellini

I first came across Alison Pouliot in the pages of Mervin Sheldrake’s book Entangled Life, published just a few months ago. Sheldrake introduces us to the world of fungi and their complexity: They can digest plastic and crude oil, they give us bread and medicines, and they connect plants in an underworld network. They are much more underrated than plants and animals, and yet they are extremely fascinating, if only we give them a chance to shine. 

This is exactly what Alison Pouliot has been doing in her photography. With a scientific background as an ecology historian, Alison focuses on the more mysterious woodland creatures, like fungi, as well as on abandoned places bearing the traces of human disregard. 

While admiring her photo essays, it occurs to me that we don’t simply occupy the planet, we are part of it, and yet there is so much we don’t know about it. I think about how, in order to build a more sustainable relationship with nature, it’s necessary to slow down and look closely at the other part in this equation. How deeply do we understand how the environment works, what it needs, which human behaviours are helpful and which ones are destructive? It’s this attentive and caring gaze that allows Alison to capture the diversity of fungi: soft-textured geometric patterns, ghostly shapes that could be the stunning guardians of the Underworld and alien-looking mushrooms with a glam aesthetic. 

Her photography is now moving from a documentaristic to a more artistic approach: “I am striving to produce work that might just touch someone somewhere and make them feel differently about the world. It’s a time of such radical change and also a time of opportunity to test the waters and do things differently. I guess it’s often times of adversity that bring out the most innovative or creative or inspirational aspects of one’s work.”

Alison’s plans for the new year start with the publication in March of Wild Mushrooming, a book she had been working on for the past five years with mycologist Tom May. The book approaches foraging from the point of view of conservation and ecosystem balance. Alison lives between Australia and Switzerland and we caught up with her after she had just completed a series of six short videos on fungi and was back in Europe for the cold season. 

What does home mean to you?

I’m not sure that I’ve ever really worked that out. It’s certainly not a physical place. I’ve straddled both hemispheres for the last two decades (so that I can have two autumns a year and get myself a double dose of fungi) so I don’t really have a sense of a particular ‘place’ called home. In a sense I feel like I’ve been on the move all my life as we moved around a good bit in my childhood as well. I have few material possessions and find it easy to make a nest and feel comfortable pretty much anywhere, so long as there’s clean air, natural surrounds and little concrete or noise. When people talk about ‘settling’ or ‘settling down’ or getting ‘tenure’ in a job, it makes me shudder.

Which place do you have a special connection to?

Oh wow, that’s a big question. I have a short list of several hundred... Anywhere in the field really, the more remote and less inhabited the better. Of course, as an Australian and having spent many years exploring that continent, I feel incredibly connected to it, especially to the remote and wide open spaces of the interior. The blank spaces on the map, those often ungraspable, indeterminate, shimmering places that can feel so old, so solid, yet like a dream. I can’t get enough of them!

But as I’m writing these words, I’m actually wondering if one can ever really feel ‘connected’ to a place, or do we just feel comfortable or familiar? I mean, of course it’s more palpable than that. Sure we can feel a powerful inexplicable affinity, or something bigger more visceral, a physical bodily sensation, an intensity that we feel in one particular place and not another, an attachment of sorts that can be profound, but is that really ‘connection’? I know when I return to my grandmother’s home in Tasmania, now occupied by new residents, that I feel an overwhelming and inextricably entwined sense of emotion and memory solely linked to that place, but I’m not sure that I’d call it connection.I’ll have to give that some more thought. 

One of the things I love about Australia is its unpredictability, its extremes and its resistance to being controlled and regulated (as one sees, for example, in Europe) although we’re trying out hardest to do so. I love that it’s not ‘comfortable’, that it resists, that it’s so highly changeable. That it’s elusive and often incomprehensible. For me it begs one not to linger too long. It’s unsettling. It’s dis-placing. Perhaps I’m just more comfortable on the move.

What is beyond your front door?

Do you mean the flap of my tent? Wow, a wonderland of textures. A bruising storm front and ever changing light. 

What place would you most like to visit?

I’m not sure that it’s ‘a’ place, a geographically defined place. A particular location. It’s anywhere that sparks my imagination and reverberates in such a way that excites or inspires or makes me feel vertiginous. Or perhaps where there’s something I feel or experience or taste that I’ve not done before. Or likewise, where a sense of intense familiarity can be just as compelling. While going back to loved places can be powerfully nostalgic or reassuring, I also think ‘going back’ can be hard. The world is changing so fast and it’s easy to become attached to the idea of how a place once was, and hence, once can quickly feel disappointed or disenchanted. 

What are you reading / watching / listening to right now? 

I’ve got several books on the go but am utterly engrossed in As we have always done by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. An incredible piece of writing. I’m also re-reading some of the work of that amazing Alaskan anthropologist Richard “Nels” Nelson who died just over a year ago.

I’ve always got the radio or a podcast on and have just been listening to Nahlah Ayed’s program called Ideas on CBC (Canada) Radio. Am now listening to Far and Wide on RRR (Melbourne independent radio station). Otherwise everything from Anouar Brahem to Khruangbin to Carbon Based Lifeforms...  As for viewing I’ve been watching some short docos on AeonVideos.

Alison Pouliot's website
Alison's video The Kingdom Fungi

Irreplaceable – an interview with Julian Hoffman

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We are extremely pleased to hear that Julian Hoffman – longstanding friend and contributor to Elsewhere: A Journal of Place – has been shortlisted for the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation. Julian has been shortlisted for his book Irreplaceable, in which he visits habitats around the world that are under threat and which is described on the Wainwright Prize website as being ‘not only a love letter to the haunting beauty of these landscapes and the wild species that call them home, including nightingales, lynxes, hornbills, redwoods and elephant seals, it is also a timely reminder of the vital connections between humans and nature, and all that we stand to lose in terms of wonder and wellbeing.’

To mark the shortlisting of Irreplaceable for the Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation, we spoke to Julian about his book, the places he visited and the people he met, and the work that is being done and needs to be done to prevent the further loss of such special and important places.

Interview by Paul Scraton:

Elsewhere: One thing that strikes the reader even before you sit down to get stuck in to Irreplaceable is the diversity of places you visited in the course of your research? Was there one particular place that can be seen as a spark for the project, and how did you come to selecting the places to visit for the book?

Julian Hoffman: The spark for the entire book was the Hoo Peninsula in Kent. Slotted between the Thames and Medway rivers, this extraordinary span of glorious marshland, tidal creeks and ancient villages was threatened to be turned into Europe’s largest airport by a proposal championed by London’s then mayor, and now British prime minister, Boris Johnson. The development would have devastated the peninsula, eradicating a massive expanse of protected bird habitat, as well as levelling three entire villages and their 13th century churches. It would have stolen so much of what makes the place so special. But what inspired me to write specifically about the plight of that threatened place was the resilience, bravery, passion and persistence of three people who were doing everything they possibly could to save this home ground of theirs for the benefit of both human and wild communities. So that was the beginning, the Hoo Peninsula; and that day in the company of these three residents was the day when I suddenly understood what loss in the natural world meant. Because so often we measure loss numerically, through so many acres of destroyed woodland or meadow, or by how many millions of breeding birds have vanished from the skies of Europe. But through the stories of these people, and the complex, interwoven beauty of the place and its wildlife that they introduced me to, those numbers became real, visceral and relatable. They were suddenly transformed into the vibrant reality of lands, waters and lives that would be ravaged by the project.

After that, I realised that to approach the issue of loss in the natural world, and more importantly the potential for resistance to that loss, required a global perspective if I was to do it justice in any way. Because these issues affect human societies and nature across the planet. I also wanted to document as many varying habitats as possible, because biodiversity and the flourishing of communities are utterly dependent on a spectrum of functioning ecosystems. So I followed up stories of threatened islands, coral reefs, mangrove forests, tropical jungle and tallgrass prairie, while also consciously investigating what urban nature and green places mean too. And finally, the other important criteria for selecting the threatened places was my desire to trace their stories in real time, exploring them alongside the brave individuals and communities seeking to protect them. Which meant only writing about those places still actively threatened, where no final decision had been made regarding their future. Sadly, this also meant that some places I’d originally intended to include in the book had to be left out because they were destroyed before I could even get to them. These are places that exist solely in memory now for the human and wild communities that once knew them.

Elsewhere: Some of these places are very small… perhaps even unknown to people who live within a couple of miles of them. Can you give our readers a sense of why such places are so important and, as in the title of your book, why they are Irreplaceable?

JH: It didn’t take long to realise that the size of a place bears little relationship to its depth, or to the quality of connection fostered there by people. Our attachments to place can be founded on the small and intimate as easily as the expansive and remote. And for a world in which more than half its human population is urbanised, it’s critical that we pay more attention to small green spaces in cities and local suburban sites. In some respects, it’s taken us a pandemic to recognise just how essential these unsung places are. A recent survey by the Campaign to Preserve Rural England revealed that over half of respondents said that during lockdown they had a greater appreciation for how important local green spaces are for a community’s health and wellbeing. And yet these are precisely the kind of places that are at greatest risk of being destroyed, regularly threatened with being turned into car parks, luxury housing and commercial interests. And with the British government’s new slogan of ‘Build, build, build’, the situation will only get worse, when green spaces of enormous importance to local people will be regarded as expendable and sold off for development instead of being preserved for the benefit of the wider community. Between 2007 and 2014 alone, only four of 198 applications to close allotment sites were rejected by the Secretary of State. So even though allotments are absolutely protected in UK law, the other 194 were destroyed. And with their loss, as with any loss of green space in a city, nature suffers another shrinkage of real estate in which to dwell alongside us, and that world of potential connection close to home, where we often first come into contact with nature, is further eroded. And critically, for those people who lack access to green spaces further afield for socio-economic reasons, these small, unsung, nearby places are often vital for their wellbeing.

Elsewhere: One of the words we’ve heard a lot in recent years has been the idea of “wilding” or “re-wilding.” What role, if any, do such projects have in the struggle to save endangered places?

JH: I think rewilding is critical to the return of natural abundance. By leaving space for vital, elemental processes to regain their fluidity and wild expression, we enable a greater flourishing. And just as importantly, between rewilding and what in North America ecologists call ecological restoration is the opportunity to right some of the wrongs and heal some of the wounds we’ve inflicted on the world’s lands and waters. To rethink the direction that our neo-liberal economic and political systems have taken us, recalibrating our value of what matters in the process, so that the healthy functioning of ecosystems and the prospering of wild communities is part of our everyday deliberations when considering human wellbeing. 

It’s a complex and emotive issue, and there are purists and non-purists to further complicate matters of rewilding, but what is fundamentally exciting about the prospect is how it offers the chance for imaginative leaps to be made, reconnecting us to species, landscapes and places that have been thinned of so much of their meaning because of our intensive industrial, agricultural and extractive practices. Actions that have led us to a world of separation and estrangement. But enormous possibilities for restitution exist, like the Kent Wildlife Trust’s plan to bring bison to within walking distance of Canterbury to aid in the creation of woodland habitats and their multitude of ecological niches. Or like the fantastic community rewilding projects that are taking shape in Scotland and elsewhere, bringing together landowners and individuals with varied backgrounds and interests in the pursuit of a more inclusive and wilder landscape. It’s not the answer to all the issues, of course, and many of our richest seams of biodiversity, such as wildflower meadows, which have declined by a devastating 97% in the UK since the 1930s, are critically dependent on human influence, but rewilding should be seen as one of the many major tools we have to reanimate the planet’s green and blue spaces. And just as importantly, it’s imperative that we simultaneously rewild the heart in a way that makes kinship with other forms of life a natural part of being human.

Elsewhere: What struck me when reading Irreplaceable was how the stories of these places and their futures were deeply interlinked with the people committed to defending them. Can you share something of what it was like to meet such people and also whether what you saw and heard from them changed your own feelings about endangered places?

JH: From the very beginning of the book I wanted people to be at its heart. I think the separation between people and nature can sometimes be replicated in nature writing and film-making that either actively seeks to exclude humans from the scope of the work or creates an artificial island of fecundity, reinforcing not only a distance between species but also a false narrative about how well the natural world is doing. But with Irreplaceable I wanted to make the interconnection between people, wildlife and place a fundamental aspect of the story. Because in order to repair this world of wounds, in Aldo Leopold’s stark phrase, we need to deepen that weave. And what I discovered in my journeys to threatened places, where I sought out ordinary residents as much as ecologists and conservationists, was the profound capacity we have for attachment with the natural world. The people I met there – taxi-drivers, soldiers, teachers and nurses – were actively enlarging the idea of home while trying to defend a place of importance, so that it included the more-than-human in its embrace. It was a deeply moving experience for me, but also wonderfully joyous, welcoming and inspiring being in their company. They showed me that positive, transformative change is possible.

Elsewhere: And have you heard back from any of them as to how they feel about the book?

JH: Yes, I have. And each time it was a really emotional experience after all the anxiety of wondering whether they felt I got the stories they’d entrusted me with right, which often included their own personal worries and vulnerabilities too. But the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Last November I was involved in an event for the Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust on the theme of trees and irreplaceable ancient woodland and they’d invited the group of people I’d spent time with who were doggedly seeking to protect the ancient woodland of Smithy Wood, with 850 years of continuous wooded history, from being turned into a motorway services off the M1. I hadn’t seen any of these people since 2015 when they shared their stories of this woodland with me, and although we were now in a concrete venue in the middle of the city you could still sense that intricate world of trees and leaves and roots around them. And by sheer coincidence, that was the same day that we learned that Smithy Wood was most likely to be spared. And it reminded me that although four years had passed between our meetings, while I had been writing about other threatened places in the world, their fight to save that irreplaceable ancient woodland had carried on throughout that entire time. So it’s been an incredible honour getting to know such resolute people.

Elsewhere: So often it feels like positive environmental stories come down to the commitment and hard work of individuals or small groups. What do you think governments and other institutional bodies need be doing if we are to stop the loss of the places you write about?

JH: Firstly, and most importantly, to listen. I was amazed by just how many people in my journeys felt a connection to the natural world and green spaces in one way or another. And yet their concerns are largely ignored. The almost complete lack of attention given to environmental issues in its broadest sense during election campaigns and debates is a sign of how low down the list of priorities it is for most politicians. For many of them, particularly on the right, though by no means exclusively, the philosophy of perpetual economic growth is hardwired into their souls. They can’t see around it; neither what it costs in terms of other measures of wellbeing or how it’s a trap, a hamster wheel you can never escape from. All you can do is keep building, extracting, devouring. None of which is a destination in itself, just a way to keep the wheel spinning sufficiently that you can convince yourself you’re actually going somewhere. But listening to others’ concerns, especially when they don’t conform to your vision of the world, and absorbing exactly what scientists are saying about the devastation that climate change and biodiversity loss will cause, is absolutely imperative. And if they won’t listen, then it’s up to us as citizens to be far more pro-active when it comes to voting for parties and politicians who will.

Elsewhere: In a book like yours, where the situation can so often seem desperate, it can be hard to find hope. But I found Irreplaceable extremely hopeful even if not every struggle will be successful. Did you feel hopeful after writing this book and how do you feel now?

JH: I remember right back at the beginning, just after experiencing the Hoo Peninsula in 2013, wondering where the trajectory of the book would take me. Would it be a deep dive into grief, or an angry rant about the destructive power of capitalism? Would it be an elegy, or a tome of hopelessness? I really had no idea back then how the journey would unfold, but it didn’t take long to witness and recognise the enormous potential and capacity for positive action when people stand up for what’s right. When people work in cohesion on behalf of something bigger than themselves, uniting around an idea, a place, a wild species. This is what I came to call radical hopefulness. When the word hope is understood not in a passive context, which is what we all commonly do, but as an active verb. A verb that makes change possible solely by acting on it. So, yes, I remain hopeful, in the sense that I experienced what is not only possible on my journeys but actively happening in communities throughout the world right now. During the dark days, these are the stories I hang on to.

Elsewhere: As great fans of your work, from your writings for various outlets (including Elsewhere!), and your books The Small Heart of Things and Irreplaceable, the last thing we need to know is… what’s next?

JH: Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say! Like countless people around the globe, my plans were upturned by the pandemic. Which meant the book I was intending to write had to be shelved, at least for the foreseeable future, as the journeys, stories and interviews I’d pinned it on could obviously no longer happen. But in the wake of that disappointment, as I had a spring and summer at home instead of one on the road, a new vision for a book took shape. It’s called Shelter, and while not specifically about the pandemic it of course has everything to do with it. The idea emerged out of that need to stay in place, but also from an urgent sense of solidarity with other forms of life seeking to dwell in safety and security. For the past two winters, up to 14 wrens have roosted on especially cold nights in a long-abandoned swallow’s nest above our front door. To have them that near to us as we slept, and to watch them drop out of that shelter at dawn each day, often into a world of swirling snow, and then return at dusk from separate directions, has been one of the most extraordinary and enlarging experiences of my life. Just as they were departing their shelter for good in early spring we were entering our own due to the pandemic, so the book is really about living in a shared world – our mutual, fragile and astonishing shelter we call Earth – a personal exploration of wild lives nearby and how we might go about creating the psychological and emotional space for co-existence. 

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Irreplaceable: The fight to save our wild places is published in paperback by Penguin

Five Questions for... Malte Brandenburg

Photo: Malte Brandenburg

Photo: Malte Brandenburg

By Sara Bellini

Malte Brandenburg is a photographer based in Copenhagen. In his creative practice he looks for simplicity and symmetry and in the past he has often found them in Berlin buildings. Housing spaces are explored both in their aesthetics as well as their urbanistic context and social value. After the pandemic changed his travelling plans, Malte is now finalising some projects while exploring the familiar streets of Copenhagen with his camera. 

What does home mean to you?

That is a tricky question for me as I left my home town Berlin almost thirteen years ago and moved to Copenhagen. I still feel attached to Berlin, but at the same time the city becomes more and more foreign to me. And vice versa Copenhagen was for a number of years just a city I lived in, without the feeling that this is my home. It was somewhat in between, which was strange. However, after a while I found the right corner here for me and finally clicked with Copenhagen. Strangely though, I also feel more independent from where I am, as long as I'm with my family, it's difficult to describe. I guess they are my own little biotope :-).

Which place do you have a special connection to?

I have a very special connection to a place in Berlin called Gropiusstadt, a settlement of various tower blocks designed by Walter Gropius in the south of Berlin. I grew up nearby and had a couple of friends there and also had to pass through to get to the local swimming pool, which is why I spent quite a bit of time between these tower blocks. It always felt like a very surreal place to me, because of the sheer amount of concrete reaching into the sky.

Photo: Malte Brandenburg

Photo: Malte Brandenburg

I could not fathom that almost 50 000 people lived there. Also from a sociological point of view it's a quite interesting place and how it has changed within a relatively short period of time. This place was one of the first topics I was drawn to when I started to focus my photography more and more on urban architecture. I still return to Gropiusstadt on a regular basis.

What is beyond your front door?

Beyond my front door there are friends, a nice park and the beach, which I appreciate a lot. About 40 meters away there is also one of the best bakeries in town with shelves of sourdough bread!

What place would you most like to visit?

I would like to travel through Eastern Europe, all the way to Russia. I am fascinated by the culture and especially the food.

What are you reading / watching / listening to right now?

I am currently reading Agent to the Stars, a novel by John Scalzi about an alien race on earth that hires a PR agent in order to manage the revelation of their presence to humanity - it's hilarious! I also just finished The Last Dance, the Michael Jordan documentary. One of the best documentaries I have seen. I might be biased though, as he was a bit of a childhood idol. In terms of music, I listen a lot to Moi Caprice these days, a Danish band I discovered by accident, because the lead singer's daughter goes into the same class as my son.  

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Find out more about Malte Brandenburg on his website and Instagram.

Five Questions for... Jessica J. Lee

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Two years ago we reviewed Turning, her memoir about swimming in the lakes around Berlin. This autumn Jessica J. Lee is back with the autobiographical Two Trees Make a Forest: On Memory, Migration and Taiwan. She is an environmental historian, writing tutor, nature writer and editor of The Willowherb Review, an online platform for nature writing by writers of colour. Jessica writes with the precision of a botanist but without the pretence that nature writing has no singularity, discarding the old cliché haunting the genre: that we all experience the environment in the same way, that diversity doesn’t matter and doesn’t exist. 

 What does home mean to you?

Multiplicity. It’s taken me a really long time to realise that home didn’t have to be singular, that I didn’t need to pick one place to call home. Both my parents are immigrants, and I’ve been an immigrant myself: instead of seeing that as a kind of “dislocation”, I’ve made a conscious choice to see that as productive, as a way of saying I belong to many places. I was born in London, Ontario, which people seem to find confusing because I lived in London, England for so long. Halifax (in Nova Scotia). Toronto. Berlin. Taipei. 

Which place do you have a special connection to?

I wrote my PhD dissertation about Hampstead Heath, which I lived next to through my early twenties. There was a beautiful lime tree that I used to hang out under, reading, resting, dreaming, crying: it bore witness to a lot of my most transformative moments in young adulthood. The tree came down in a storm in 2012, but the spot where it stood still draws me in. I have its leaf tattooed on my arm. 

 So I’d say there, but also: the bay at my family’s cottage in Canada, the cafe window in Berlin where I usually sit and write, the Taiwanese breakfast shop in Taipei where I get cold soy milk and hot shaobing youtiao. 

What is beyond your front door?

My street has one of the most beautiful views in Berlin, I think: it’s abnormally long and tree-lined and lovely. To the left, you’ll find more children and ice cream shops and wine bars and pet stores than necessary, and to the right you’ll find a busy road with a tram that races back and forth over the old Berlin Wall border all day. There’s a spicy hand-pulled noodle shop not far away, which is probably the best thing within walking distance. 

 What place would you most like to visit?

This is an impossible choice! There are so many countries I’ve yet to visit—Japan, Norway, New Zealand—but if I can be really specific, I’ll say Jiaming Lake in the Central Mountains of Taiwan. It’s a teardrop of a lake at the top of the mountains, famous for being a shallow, glassy mirror of the sky. People used to say it was formed by a meteor strike, but it was actually formed by glacial movement. But it’s a nightmare to hike to because of permits, the logistics of getting to the trailhead, the three-day trek, etc. I’ve twice had journeys to the Jiaming cancelled, so it’s become something of an obsession for me to one day actually make it there. 

What are you reading / watching / listening to / looking at right now?

I have the bad habit of reading many books at once. Currently, Brandon Shimoda’s The Grave on the Wall and Yoko Tawada’s The Last Children of Tokyo during the day, and Ben Aaronovitch’s The October Man as bedtime reading. I watch too much television—it’s one of the only ways I can switch off at home—so I’m currently finishing with Jane the Virgin. And for music, I’ve returned to Japanese Breakfast’s Soft Sounds from Another Planet on repeat. 

Jessica on Twitter
Website
The Willowherb Review


Five Questions for... Vanessa Berry

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Interview by Sara Bellini:

We love zines, maps, psychogeography and archives, which is why we really wanted to speak to Vanessa Berry. She started making zines in the 1990s and is the creator of the long-running Disposable Camera, the last issue of which was published a few days ago. Besides making zines Vanessa writes a psychogeography blog Mirror Sydney, exploring “the marginal places and details of the city of Sydney” and in 2017 she also published a collection of essays and hand-drawn maps with the omonimous title.

Vanessa’s work is equally autobiographical and historical, exploring her personal relationship with place and memory as well as the stories that belong to a specific place. In the case of Australia where the pre-colonial memory of the island has been highly disregarded, Vanessa always writes “with acknowledgement of the Aboriginal lands”, reminding us that we should always be respectful of spaces that we share with others and that many others before us have respectfully preserved.

Vanessa’s newest project is a book of essays on place, memory and relationships with animals and the 20th anniversary issue of her other zine I am a Camera.

What does home mean to you?

My connection to the physical environment is strong and deeply-felt and always has been. I attribute this to being a quiet and introspective person, an observer who has always felt a kinship with the environment around me - its objects, creatures, details, changes, daily rhythms - as much as with other people. I do a lot of work at home, in a small and cluttered room amid piles of books and papers, and this is probably where I feel most at home. Although writing is also a kind of home for me, if you see me with a notebook open and I'm writing in it, know that this is when I feel most connected with the world. Perhaps that's what home means to me: feeling connected to where I am, wherever that be.

Which place do you have a special connection to?

My mental map of Sydney is made up of many such places I feel a special connection to. Generally they fall under the categories of anomalies, places of respite and places of solace. In the latter category there's a particular headland overlooking the Pacific Ocean that I go to at times of significance or difficulty. The city's eastern edge is a long stretch of coastline, scalloped into bays and beaches between sandstone cliffs. The approach to this particular headland is a stretch of parkland which rises up to a rocky outcrop. I sit on the grass and watch the magpies which patrol it. A group of them live here, and whenever I am there I see them moving across the lawn, heads cocked, listening for insects under the soil. One time, when I was sitting on the rocks, they assembled in front of me and all started singing, which felt like a gift from them and from this place, which never fails to make my spirit feel lighter.

What is beyond your front door?

Having lived in the same house for almost a decade, this scene is now permanently established in my mind's eye and I could describe it to the utmost detail, however I will keep it brief: a low brick fence with a crooked front gate made of wrought iron shaped into hearts and curls. Beyond this, lining the street, is a row of native fig trees. Directly across from the house is an olive-green metal box a few metres long which I like to imagine holds the street's secrets, but is actually an electricity substation. At the corner of the yard is a hibiscus tree which is often in flower. People like to pick them as they walk past and I don't have the heart to tell them that once you do, the flowers close up very quickly.

What are you reading / watching / listening to / looking at right now?

I am writing this answer on a plane which is flying over a scene below where the land meets the sea in an outline of bays and rivers, and the sun has dispersed to an orange glow on the horizon. I'm listening to the new Gwenno album, Le Kov. Tucked into the seat pocket in front of me is How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee and an issue of Elementum. My watching, for now, is all out the oval frame of the plane window, thinking about the ocean below, the atmosphere above, and how it feels to be suspended in between.

Vanessa Berry's blog
Instagram
Twitter

Five Questions for... Mitch Karunaratne

Image: Mitch Karunaratne

Image: Mitch Karunaratne

For our series of interviews with contributors and friends of Elsewhere, we caught up with documentary landscape photographer Mitch Karunaratne. Mitch's wonderful photo essay 'The Land of Maybe' from the Faroe Islands appeared in Elsewhere No.05, the most recent edition of the journal and available via our online shop here.

What does home mean to you?

Home grounds me, keeps me energised and focused. It’s my memory box.

Where is your favourite place?

I’ve always been drawn to water. I was born on a small island in the Thames Estuary and the connection to water flows through my soul. Whether it’s the canal running through the Olympic Park or the view of Tilbury Dock from the roof of Thurrock Nature Park – all my favourite places are in liquid form!

What is beyond your front door?

Ted. He’s lived on the street for over 60 years, moved in as a newlywed, raised his family and now looks after the street. Rising at 5am, he delivers the papers, takes in everyone’s parcels and packages, feeds the cats and looks out for us all.

What place would you most like to visit?

At the moment, I’m feeling the drawn of lands close to home. I’d love to look down from the peaks of Snowdon or Ben Nevis – but would definitely struggle going up!

What are you reading right now?

The Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy - This book crept up on me really slowly. McCarthy writes well about the personal and the political - in ways that leave room for the reader to insert themselves. But as it developed I became more and more quietly drawn into understanding that I too, like the author, and I'm sure most human beings, had some very memorable moments orchestrated by nature and wonder, it felt good to give those moments a vocabulary.

Mitch is a founding member of the Map6 Collective, exploring the relationship between people and place.