EP62 - INTERDISCIPLINARY ENVIRONMENTAL ARTIST - Lora Aziz

Lora is an Egyptian–British interdisciplinary artist, writer, and researcher whose community-led work moves between environmental storytelling, walking-based arts, and cultural practice.

We are channeling full moon energy in the studio. This was recorded before Nick’s Costa to Costa mission and he is buzzing to set off. Lora is the partner of our previous guest Marley, the Community Farmer and Film Maker, who we LOVE! We love Lora too! What’s up culturally between Essex and Suffolk? Lora moved to the S county, but still feels culturally rooted in Essex. What is ethnobotany? It’s all about how humans relate to plants and place. Anthropology of plants. Uses of plants and their names change with places, especially historically. 

Essex’s modern identity is part geezer, part Haywain. The National Gallery, so many great paintings in one place, and The Haywain is coming back to Essex this year! Changing the image of Essex. Lora is a wildcrafter, working with foraging, land access, dealing with pollution, and now a tenant farmer, which is very hard. Lora worked bringing people together and showing them what is around them, edible, medicinal, and the justice that exists around land use. A deeper understanding helps people want to protect their natural environment. Education about plant families and similarities to make global connections between people and place. Lathcoats Farm apple tasting station is amazing to try different varieties. Planting fruit trees and digging bore holes on the farm. Wondering at the layers of orange earth, blue London clay, sand and chalk that came from the bore hole, and processing them into art - all of these colours from beneath their feet on the farm. 

How did feudalism and capitalism change land rights. Hawthorn was planted to keep people off of land in these times, and it is very prolific across the county. 

All about the 70 mile North to South ‘Saffron Trail’ in Essex, running from Southend-on-Sea to Saffron Walden. Lora walked the Pilgrim’s Way and the Essex Way during lockdown. Saffron is a plant not from Essex, so it is an interesting subject for people and place. Growing saffron and grapes for wine in Essex, and climate change. The cultural stress of learning about new growing and production on land, such as Essex’s move to grape growing playing catch up with generations of tradition from other growing regions. What are ‘blue spaces’? Water spaces. Of which there are loads of varieties on the Saffron Trail.  And artists can respond to these sites in Lora’s project. About the Sudbury to the Sea kayak route. Slow travel and exploring the county. Making inks and paper from the land, and using them for calligraphy. The history of colours. Lora has been exhibiting at Wellcome Collection in London in the exhibition ‘Thirst In Search of Fresh Water’. Be curious - learn about plants, talk to people about them, observe them, and explore.

Lora Aziz website

Lora Aziz on Instagram

Are You Creative? recorded by Adam at Lawker Media, Chelmsford, ESSEX
Edited by Nick Hearne
Artwork by Alpaca Antenna

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Transcript

Nick 0:02

We are channeling full moon energy, right? Oh yeah. Laura said we had to channel full moon energy tonight because we might it's quite late and we might be a bit tired.

Lora 0:10

Exactly.

Nick 0:11

Got any hair sprouting anywhere? How are your palms?

Lora 0:15

Right from 12 o'clock. I tell you what, I uh I am feeling nuts like the last two days. I'm really I'm really feeling the full moon energy. Right? Yep, yep.

Nick 0:26

There you go. I think I was a bit intolerable yesterday for my wife. She was a bit like, oh, can you just go out? I'm doing this explorer thing. Have you seen? I've I'm I'm being an Arctic explorer for for Champsford Food Bank and sh and I got all my kit on yesterday because I went on the radio and I yeah, I didn't have to put the kit on to go on the radio, but you know, he was getting character. She was just like, oh god, you're exhausting. Can you just go out? Can you just go out and do your thing? I had my stuffed husky with me. I got two and a half thousand pounds now.

Sangita 0:59

Good.

Nick 1:00

Two and a half thousand, it's loads. It's unbelievable. People have those Husky dogs.

Lora 1:05

Yeah.

Nick 1:05

It's good for the food bank, so hopefully next week. Gonna bring get a and then um they'll be making a statue of me in Chelmsfield.

Lora 1:11

So what is it? What is it that you're doing? Land explore. No, land explorer, sorry, what did you say? Ex food exploring.

Nick 1:17

Costa to Costa.

Lora 1:19

What are you doing?

Nick 1:19

I'm going to I'm in in one in a single day, I'm gonna go to all 28 Costas in Chelmsfield.

unknown 1:25

Yeah.

Nick 1:25

Something no human has ever done before.

Lora 1:28

That's like a mission, like a computer game or something.

Nick 1:31

All Costa. Costa to Costa.

Lora 1:33

Costa to Costa to Costa. Coast to coast? No.

Nick 1:36

Costa. This is Costa to Costa.

Lora 1:38

Thank you.

Nick 1:39

In a single day.

unknown 1:41

Yeah.

Sangita 1:41

Nick is raising funds for our local food bank.

Nick 1:45

Yeah, so I've got two and a half thousand pounds for the food bank already.

Lora 1:47

Incredible. Yeah.

Nick 1:49

Saint Nick, thank you.

Lora 1:51

Abundance. Well done, Nick.

Nick 1:52

I wash my hands of my corporate dirty work that I've been doing. I love my corporate dirty work as well. Thank you. Please keep paying me. It's a full moon. It's it's Thursday night. Welcome to Are You Creator, the podcast about creativity in Essex, the greatest county in the world. We're back here with professional Arctic Explorer and charity saint Nick Hearn as my co-host.

Lora 2:30

And thank you to Mitra.

Nick 2:32

Who's also awesome and does a lot of good work in the community. Thank you. We are here in the Lorca Media Studios in Chelmsford, Essex, which is a beautiful game. Thank you very much to Adam. And we've got another amazing guest here today.

Lora 2:47

Who is called Laura Aziz.

Nick 2:54

Dramatic pause. Dramatic pause. Yeah. Laura Aziz. Um full full disclosure, wife of Marley, who's been on the podcast. Wife?

Lora 3:04

Yes.

Nick 3:05

Wife?

Lora 3:05

Yes.

Nick 3:06

Very nice. What a family.

Lora 3:07

Bless you.

Nick 3:09

And now we just need to have your baby on, then we've completed the whole family.

Lora 3:12

So that's so good, yeah.

Nick 3:16

Yeah, done some finger painting. Yeah. What about it?

Lora 3:20

Love that. Love that, yeah.

Nick 3:21

And Laura, are you from Essex?

Lora 3:24

I am indeed.

Nick 3:25

Where from?

Lora 3:26

Colchester.

Nick 3:27

Amazing. Me too. Oh, really? What's your postcode? Well CO4.

Lora 3:34

Really? Yeah, that was my postcode growing up.

Nick 3:36

Nice.

Lora 3:36

Yeah, it was. But now I'm I'm over the border a little bit.

Nick 3:39

I know. Well, I heard I heard you're in the S word, aren't you? Yeah, we are. Yeah, but you know, you you you still do you still you still you still you still do your artistic practices in in culture city?

Lora 3:49

My doctor's surgery is Essex, but um the library is Suffolk.

Nick 3:55

My dad, my dad has this problem as well. His house is in Essex, but his post office is in Suffolk.

Lora 4:00

Yeah, it's like we're we're county lines. County lines.

Nick 4:07

Honestly, it'd be war. You know, in Ireland there's some pubs apparently in different I think there might be some pubs that go over a border and they have different licensing laws. So everyone has to move to one side of the pub if they have a drink after 11 pm.

Lora 4:19

I'd tell you something. That'd be amazing.

Nick 4:21

You've got to have your hacks.

Lora 4:22

Culturally, there is something in the air, and I don't know what it is.

Nick 4:26

Um what in in between Essex and Suffolk? Yes. Do you think what there'll be war? Because Chelsea's trying to take over Braintree at the moment.

Lora 4:35

Thing is about England war is kind of I don't know, it's a bit slow and sneaky. Like the way people do things around here.

Nick 4:46

So Essex is just crawling, crawling into Suffolk.

Lora 4:49

Uh I don't know. Uh it's a it's a big it's a big conversation.

Nick 4:52

But yeah, it's it's um I mean there's a bit of cultural imperialism from Suffolk bringing Ed Sheeran in, you know. They're really taking over.

Lora 4:59

Yeah, we've got Ed. Yeah, we've got Ed.

Nick 5:01

Yeah, it's Bigger than Damon Alburn now, so yeah, deal with it. It's Bigland the Prodigy and Damon Orban together.

Lora 5:06

Gosh, yeah, true. Yeah, cultural warfare.

Nick 5:09

So you think Suffolk are trying to encroach on Essex or the other way around?

Lora 5:13

No, no, I it's not about encroaching, it's just I noticed the difference that I feel like I am actually from Essex when I'm in Suffolk.

Sangita 5:20

Yeah.

Lora 5:21

And I've been trying a lot to kind of feel my way into Suffolk life and the idle of Suffolk. Um but yeah, it's not quite it's not quite that, I think. Um yeah, I'm I'm I'm starting to feel the three shanks. Three shanks, what's that?

Nick 5:37

You know, the three blades, the syaxes, yeah, C-axes.

Lora 5:41

But you know, anyway, yeah. Oh wow. Yeah.

Nick 5:45

What even is the Suffolk flag? No one knows because it's not cool. It's not cool.

Lora 5:50

No, I don't know actually.

Nick 5:50

What's on the Suffolk flag?

Lora 5:52

But we don't need to know. Anyway, but yeah, it is it has been important for me, you know, knowing and finding my place as an Essex person, I think.

Nick 6:01

Do you find that do you I mean I find that I go my Essex-ness increases quite a lot when I'm outside of Essex and if I meet someone else from Essex, especially. I feel like a cultural ambassador and I've got to go a little bit more Essex, a little bit more geyser when I'm somewhere else.

Lora 6:16

I mean, it for me, like being multicultural and and having, you know, not really being from anywhere ever, I find it, you know, I find it interesting when I choose to wear the label of being from Essex or being from Suffolk or being from somewhere else, or if I'm, you know, saying it to if I go back to Egypt and I'm like, you know, I'm from Essex, they just hear sex. So it becomes a bit more intramural. I'm from London. Otherwise, they're gonna stop thinking that I'm talking about sex.

Nick 6:45

We get overlap by about the time we're five, right? Yes, Essex does have a word sex in it.

Lora 6:50

Yeah, but the rest of the world only hears the three letters sex, like, I'm from sex.

Nick 7:00

My brother lives in Tokyo, and when when we when we catch up on Skype or something, he just loves my kids' accents. He's like, oh my god, listen to those little geezers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They just sound normally normal to me, but for him, they're like, in it, yeah, what, yeah, get me a bottle of water.

Lora 7:18

Yeah, yeah. I love it. Yeah, leaning into that.

Nick 7:21

Wow, that's the longest Essex chat we've had in a long time. Greatest cante in the world. Um, are you creative?

Lora 7:27

Yeah.

Nick 7:31

Now Sankity doesn't have to guess what you do. I don't. Because we Sankity already knows. But our listeners would like to know what does a Laura Aziz do?

unknown 7:40

Oh my goodness.

Nick 7:42

Otherwise, I'm gonna read it off your website.

Lora 7:44

Yeah, go for it, go for it. Shall I read it off your website? Yeah.

Nick 7:48

Let's see if you agree with this anymore. Um, Laura Aziz is an artist whose creative practice reimagines contemporary cross-cultural relationships with land and nature through wildcrafting, community herbalism, earth science, and visual ethnobotany.

Lora 8:04

Yes.

Nick 8:05

Ethnobotany. I've never ever even said that word before.

Lora 8:08

I love it.

Nick 8:09

What is it? What's ethnobotany?

Lora 8:12

Yes, uh, ethnobotany. Botany, obviously being the study of plants and plant life, and then ethno being the ethno the ethnicity, the the the human relationship to those plants and that that that land. So it's kind of the anthropology of plants and place.

Nick 8:29

Anthroetnobotany, of course.

Lora 8:31

So ethnobotany specifically, yeah, is locating those plants to a people. So if you're from Chelmsford, like a dandelion could be called something, but if you go to Colchester, a dandelion, the dandelion of Essex, but then if you go to Colchester, it might be called something else. Oh, that's so interesting. And the use from place to place is different from place to place.

Nick 8:51

So I I I find that really interesting. Uh you know, barn owls are called Billy Wicks in Essex, and they're called Molly Dishwasher. I'm thinking oh no, something like that in Kent. And I love all these different words for for um plants and animals.

Lora 9:05

There you go. Ethnobotanist.

Nick 9:07

That's ethno- No, but that would be floor fauna.

Lora 9:09

No, not flora and fauna. But yeah, that's the that's the that's that's the the the feeling of fascinating. Yeah, yeah.

Nick 9:16

So of what what interesting um names have we got for stuff in Essex?

Lora 9:20

Oh, um, yeah, there's there's uh oh that's a really good question.

Nick 9:25

What you know, what sort of defines Essex? Because I think like, you know, when you look at the um when people think about the landscape of I guess everyone really thinks about Constable and Dedham and you know the Dedham Vale and the river and that sort of stuff.

Lora 9:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick 9:40

That's amazing like, you know, that that is that's like quintessential Essex, right?

Lora 9:43

Yeah, yeah. But it's kind of framed in in the past, and it's kind of like, you know, a snapshot of what life used to look like as a rural, a rural landscape, and providing a lot of the um of of uh the agricultural production to London, and it's kind of the offspill of that, so it's kind of you know people that would be working the land, um, and that's a very hard graft, and uh yeah, so I think that there's always that that look at deep dive into the past when we think about Essex and its old ancestral relationship to to but now it's changed, it's completely changed, and and that kind of separation from where we are and where we were is really interesting, especially if you are like me from a migrant you know background, and then all of a sudden that's another overlay that you have to kind of tell the story of where you live and yeah, yeah, but everyone's still in love with those olden days times, aren't they?

Nick 10:41

When you have your cultural identity, I think like part geyser, part haywain. Yeah, exactly.

Lora 10:46

You know, yeah, yeah.

Nick 10:48

And and also I suppose in Essex, Essex is interesting, isn't it?

Lora 10:51

Because I'm just loving that. Part geezer, part Heywain. Did you know?

Nick 10:56

Um It's like a centaur, but I've got wheels.

Lora 10:58

Yeah, exactly. The Heywain is coming back to Essex. I know, I hers, yeah. Probably from Fraser, but yeah, um No, it's gonna it's gonna be where's it gonna be on display? Uh in at Dedham, I think, at Flatford Mills. Is it or in a museum somewhere in Ipswich?

Nick 11:14

They're gonna have to have some security, yeah.

Lora 11:15

Big time. Oh it's an old wagon.

Nick 11:19

Yeah, I was in the Heyway in the National Gallery. It's mad. Like if you go to the National Gallery, you can just walk through a couple of rooms and it's like bangers, it's like saying all the bit all the biggest bands ever. Because you've got um Whistle Jacket, you've got the Heyway, and you've got the um Tiger in a Tropical Storm, you've got uh The Ambassadors by Hans Halbian, all like in these rooms, you just walk in between them, you're like, Well, how can there be that this many famous paintings all like in one bit? Yeah, Gainsborough, yeah, amazing, such good Turner, The Fighting Temerera and stuff. Oh, that's amazing, so much good stuff there. Yeah, I'd highly recommend that. But like the Elgin Marbles should one day return to Athens, we're gonna bring the Hwain back to Essex.

Lora 11:59

Reparations.

Nick 12:00

Reparations, yeah. So yeah, once the Highway's back at Essex, we're not letting it go back to London, are we? No, that's no, let's keep it, keep Essex for Essex.

Lora 12:09

Yes.

Nick 12:10

And Grayson Perry, let's repatriate all of his his artworks as well.

Lora 12:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it, that's pretty good. Yeah.

Nick 12:17

So let's look at up on a hayway. Pardon? What were they even taking? Just some hay.

Lora 12:22

Some what were they taking? Some hay.

Nick 12:24

Yeah, hay, they were just taking hay, weren't they? It's a hayway.

Lora 12:26

Yeah, I think so. Just like, yeah, how you can make that much money off some hay, but well, you've got to move hay around. Yeah, you do. And yeah, we live on a where we see the hay being moved every day where we live, so it's yeah, it's a big job. Every day. Marley, Marley on his back, like well, you can roll it, you wouldn't want to put it on your back. It'd be heavy.

Nick 12:46

Be well itchy.

Lora 12:47

Yeah. These ones are wrapped in plastic, so yeah, that's alright. But yeah, you do, yeah, you need a couple of people to push the hay.

Nick 12:58

I suppose that Essex is really interesting though, because you've got so many different landscapes. And you know, when you think about it, really, you've got um, you know, you've got your salt flats from Molden, you've got oysters in in Mersey, you've got um la whole dengue, like like crazy, like ecosystem with like, you know, all of all the muddiness and stuff, yeah, and estuaries. Then you've got your beautiful, constable green valleys and just brilliant, isn't it? Essex.

Lora 13:26

Yeah.

Nick 13:27

People were really surprised when they come here that they haven't been to Essex Pro, and they're like, oh, actually, it's it's really nice here. Mm-hmm. Because they just think it's I don't know what they think it's gonna be, they're just one big stiletto or something. White. It's just one big white stiletto and a four quarter burning, and they're like, Oh, I just thought that was gonna be Essex.

Lora 13:44

I'm afraid so.

Nick 13:45

But look at it, there's loads of really nice countryside and loads of um diversity.

Lora 13:49

Diversity in Yeah. You got mud on the stiletto as well. That's true.

Nick 13:56

Well, actually, a stiletto would be good for wading, I suppose. That is maybe that's where it came from.

Lora 14:03

Yeah, I know. I don't know where it came from. Me know. What stiletto? Yeah, I can't remember. There is a story in that. The white stilettoes. Yeah. No white, not white. I just don't remember where like high heels came from, but that's a whole nother subject, isn't it?

Nick 14:18

I don't know. We've got to look at some ethnobotany on this.

Lora 14:21

What's the amber? Definitely not land work, that's what I know.

Nick 14:28

No, what? Then it could be be good for aerating a lawn.

Lora 14:33

Yes, that would be. Yes, it would be very good.

Nick 14:35

Just get the stilettos to walk around.

Lora 14:36

Yeah, yeah.

Nick 14:37

Just on just put on like some um Sophie Ellis Becks to murder on the dance floor or something. Give everyone a prosecco and and their high heroes and just get them to walk around and they'll aerate the whole thing.

Lora 14:47

I absolutely love that, sure. That is that is brilliant, that's brilliant.

Nick 14:53

And then before the end, Molly's Field is perfectly aerated, and it's ready for crops.

Lora 14:58

Good words. That's bloody brilliant. If we were in 1980 where women wore white stilettos, then yeah, like I haven't been to a nightclub in a long time.

Nick 15:09

I don't know what people wear now.

Lora 15:11

Comfy shoes. Jelly's the club YP or you've got no one's doing stilettos. So Laura, tell us what so you've you've up in Colchester now, you're doing all the lovely stuff I know from before that you've done around foraging and plants and stuff. Is that what's prompted you to go into all of this kind of stuff more deeper? The land stuff and living off the land? Yeah, I guess like when you're a wildcrafter, you're always going out and you know, out on public footpaths and meeting that kind of um meeting all the different barriers that come up, and pollution to land access to all these different kinds of things. And then, you know, the next step is once you're that thick in it, and obviously having Marley who'd done all his work at um different farms and and had learned his craft, it was sort of time to think about taking it a bit more seriously and and being out um being out as tenant farmers of of a patch of land. Um which is how's that transition been for you? Bloody hard. Like oh my god. Like, yeah, that could be a whole positive.

Nick 16:36

No one no one ever said farming was easy.

Lora 16:39

Yeah, have you got animals and stuff on it? We don't yeah, we've got a child who's 18 hours. It's only when you said the hay and stuff, and I'm imagining, oh my god, these guys must be up at three o'clock in the morning feeding the cows.

Nick 16:52

I tell you what, I'll tell you what the baby's not big enough to pull a plow yet.

Lora 16:55

I'm at I'm up at three o'clock in the morning, but it's um milking out.

Nick 17:00

So that's what you know, we'll we'll we'll just talk about your background as well, because you used to do a lot of sort of like foraging walks and and and um community things so people can understand their connection to the landscape. Yep, yeah. So um, and you did some in Chelmsfield as well, didn't you? Like so, what would happen on one of these like sort of guided foraging walks? Because, you know, it is an artistic practice as well, as uh sort of community engagement.

Lora 17:23

Yeah, um for me those walks were all about bringing people together and kind of showing them actually what's around. Like it's like for me, it was always a dimmer light turning on the lights a little bit for for people to be able to understand the background that you walk past every single day is actually is actually alive and there and semi-edible, so yeah, yeah, edible, medicinal, but also yeah, and I think that's where I'm now in my practice, going way beyond the but can I eat that kind of question. It's it's actually like it's the justice that that exists around the whole practice as well, and starting to really deepen that and see what I can take from how far can we go with this, and I think that that's where my practice is definitely evolving. I think foraging for me was just like this ultimate, like you know, when you've got something so amazing or you've seen something so amazing, and you're just like, oh my god, it's a full moon, that's if you see the moon, oh my god, everybody, and it's that like that joy jive, that joy, you just can't like I have to tell everyone I know because it's like once you know, you can't unknow those things. So if you're going out on a walk with me, you're never just it's not just like you know, I'm just walking and then we're talking, it's like walking and then oh look at that! Like whoa, there's a horse of like two.

Nick 18:45

So with that engagement, you know, that's people need to know what they're protecting, right? And what they're fighting for, and you know what what they're in danger of losing as well, I suppose. Especially um, yeah, I was laughing the other day because you get all these uh housing developments by Red Row often quite they're always cool, they're always named after what they're taking away. Oh Meadow View and things like that.

Lora 19:05

Cow pasture lanes, yeah, yeah.

Nick 19:07

And it's just and I know even like near Colchester where you guys are as well, like they they were talking about this massive great taid of triangle development of new houses and stuff. And it's all sort of taken away this countryside of Essex that we'll never get back.

Lora 19:20

No, no, no, I don't know.

Nick 19:22

So so if people so if people have a deeper understanding and relationship with that, bingo.

Lora 19:28

Yeah, definitely. And there's that agency that is the ability to then maybe stand up and protect it, or to even be able to understand what it is that you're even looking at. If you're just looking at green background, or that's what most people think it is, it's just like a background, like you know, I don't, you know, like this. But we all understand that that's a a T um I've got a TV behind me. But it's like that the background is is is a TV, but actually it it's made up of all these different components, and yeah.

Nick 19:58

Listen, listen, guys, it's not just a selfie background, alright? You can eat it, you can make medicine out of it, animals live there. There's a lot of ethnobotany going on.

Lora 20:06

Love that. Yeah, but there I I guess there is because look, I I've known Laura for a good few years now, and I remember meeting Laura um back in the meadows when um you guys had that art thing, yeah. Um and I remember from there Laura doing the foraging with some of our Asian women here, and the feedback that we got was it was amazing because they started to think about back home and you guys, the videos that I used to see were they'd walk into a car park, then they'd they'd pick up all these little plants, and next minute they're boiling them.

Nick 20:44

Right. But it's interesting when when you think we had Catalina in the other day, okay, from Columbia.

Lora 20:49

From Worcester, yeah.

Nick 20:50

From Columbia, yeah, from Columbia, but from Columbia. I mean it is they both begin with C O L. Yeah, but you know, she you know, when she when she was saying, like, you know, coming to England and seeing foxes and stuff was like really like exciting and exotic wildlife. I suppose if you're from a different country and someone actually shows you what you can forage and what's in the landscape, it suddenly comes to life, and you're like, Whoa, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah.

Lora 21:12

And for me, it's it's about connecting those plants families to the plant variety that is back home. Yeah, so that's a big part, you know. Just like we are all from one family of human race, right? But we've got these different adaptations of to where we've come from, and the same with plants. So you can find, you know, you can find an apple here, and you can also find an apple in Pakistan, but they're gonna be different, but they're gonna be the same, but you can use them similarly, even if one is super sharp, yeah, one is super sweet. And it just takes a bit of a shift to understand that you're still getting the same.

Nick 21:46

Do you know what's brilliant? If you go to Lafco's farm in Chelmsford, they've got an apple tasting station, and they've got about they've got about 30 or 40 different types of apple that they they grow because they're trying they try and diversify livings, and you can like cut off a little bit and try. Yep. I've been trying to work my way through all the apples. Not that I'm buying, I am buying them. I'm not laughing. Sorry, I'm not just going there just eating them. I'm buying the apples afterwards, but I'm just I'm I'm I'm doing my little tasting notes.

Lora 22:11

Yeah, that's a rare thing, you know, to be able to know different 40 different species of apple or whatever. Did you know there was 20,000 different kinds of species of rice once upon a time? And and now we've like monocropped it down to like, you know, five or six that are being sold in shops.

Nick 22:28

Banana growers are terrified, aren't they? Because it's become a monoculture. They used to be there used to be like tons and tons of different types of bananas, and they just come down to one banana, and they said, Oh, all it takes is one little crazy little virus to come along, or like a bug or something. No more bananas. Yeah, that's it. No more bananas. Bananas are fragile, they can be destroyed. Yeah, in a cake. And that's why it's important. And Tagita, that that's why it's really important to have all these different varieties of apples.

Lora 22:59

Yep.

Nick 22:59

And bananas.

Lora 23:00

Yeah, definitely. And people. And people. Yeah, definitely. And we don't end up with a monoculture of you know, phone phone people we need to rem I don't know. Phone people. Yeah.

Nick 23:13

Yeah, I don't think we should have phone people either.

Lora 23:15

No, no, but you know what I mean? Like that whole thing of like my one answer Instagram kind of mind. But it's like, let's let's look at 40 different types of apples and see what wisdoms they've got to share with us. Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. Can I um go back to so the farming bit now that you're there? What kind of bits are you guys harvesting there? What how's it? I mean, Marley went through some of the bits, but how much further have you guys got from his body? Oh, so I don't know. He was on like this time last year, I think. So you guys were just starting then? Yeah.

Nick 23:51

Um He's cut off his dreadlocks since then.

Lora 23:53

He has cut off all his dreadlocks. Oh wow. He's a dad now. Well, not just that. I think it's is a transformation, to be fair. We've been going through quite a lot, and I think, you know. Oh, amazing. Okay. Yeah. Wow.

Nick 24:08

So yeah, what life on the farm? What's going on on the farm?

Lora 24:10

Life on the farm. Uh yeah, so we planted loads of trees in a part of like an agroforestry strip that we've been like trying to test, and um yeah, so the fruit trees are in, veg bags are being slowly delivered round to people within a five-mile radius. I mean, I haven't had much to do with it. I managed to um secure some funding to put a borehole in. What is a borehole? Yeah, it's a big thing.

Nick 24:37

It's not for boars, it's not for a pig like boars. It's water.

Lora 24:40

Yep. You drill, we drilled 15 metres deep until we tapped into water that is on the water table. And then you're drawing that water up so that you can irrigate your own plants. That right there is the ultimate epitome of my creativity right now was watching that water come up from the borehole.

Nick 25:08

That's incredible. Did you have to um get like a big digger thing with um a spinny spinny drill?

Lora 25:13

Uh well, we didn't.

Nick 25:14

50 militres is so long.

Lora 25:16

That's so deep. Yeah, yeah. And and we just um we tapped right up until like it was just below the London clay.

Sangita 25:25

Yeah.

Lora 25:26

So London clay is like London blue clay, which kind of is like a geographical area that is from here all the way up to London, and it spans out over to Kent. And it's like the different layers underneath the soil that exists. So you've kind of got stones, and you've got sand, and then you've got um maybe more like sandy kind of, and then you've got clay, and then you've got blue clay, and then under that you've got chalk, and then under that you've got like thousands and thousands of years, or millions of years, of um like fish bones and whale bones that are all like these compressions, and it's so funny. Um, just catching the end there of the last podcaster and him talking about the microplastics in the uh in the in the river, and then how basically the the guy who came along to drill these boreholes was thinking, you know, he was saying, This is all the years of history right beneath our feet, and he's like a geezer, he's you know, he was just like completely just not fussed by it. And I was like writing it all down, like, oh my god, this is research material, and then you know, and then he's like at the end, um, but do you know what we're gonna be? We're gonna be a little layer, a little black layer, you know, at the end of that, of all that oil and plastic. It's just plastic, like melted down plastic layer that's gonna be, but you know, we'll carry on. And it was just interesting, like to to watch that layer and that connection to place and where I am at the moment come through. It's just like I've got a geography degree.

Nick 26:57

Yeah. And I love like Lavostock ice cores and things like that, you know, where they drill out these ballholes and they bring out they they bring out these massive tubes so you can see every layer. So when they were drilling out, did it actually come out as like a big like sausage of earth?

Lora 27:09

Yes, so it's like spilled, spilled, spilled like like um, so a lot of the sand and everything came out and it was bright orange because of all of the iron. Wow. So you're thinking about all of that iron-rich stuff. So my immediate like, I need to touch that in and then um so then we used that to create a massive um circle around the fire. So we created a fire pit, put all the sand there, moved that all there, but not immediately, but uh after a couple days, and then also um then up came the massive, it was like a plug almost of blue clay. So we have a plug of blue clay that we then used. Um Marley and I processed it, and actually, to be fair, it's kind of like the blue, the navy blue on the walls in here. That it's kind of like this yeah, dark navy navy blue grey, royal blue, royal blue, yeah, royal blue with a touch of grey, it's kind of like a short slatey kind of colour, and then we processed it and then painted it on the wall as part of an exhibition at Cuckoo Farm Studios on natural processes.

Nick 28:12

So it's amazing to get like all these colours, like a really deep royal blue, like bright orange, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's all under your feet and all under your feet.

Lora 28:19

It was fascinating within within seconds, obviously, and that's years and years and years, thousands of years of like stored, yeah, stored um mineral and energy, and and yeah, to see it all come up. And so then we were sat outside, and then we just Zeki decided it was a hot day, it was like June. Uh, put some in in a bowl, and then he's just like rubbing it all over himself, and he covered himself basically. We've got some amazing pictures of him.

Nick 28:44

What's really good though, it makes him invisible to the predator.

Lora 28:47

Yeah, exactly. People pay a lot of money for that, like you know I'm going to go and have a mud bar, yeah. You know, or like all these rituals that be like, for the farm.

Nick 28:59

You want to be careful though, if you stand out in the sun, you'll just go hard and you'd be like stuck in this clay clay thing. It'd be weird, you'd be like an Anthony Gormley.

Lora 29:07

Yeah, exactly. The Anthony Gormley of Suffolk, we can make that habit. Toddlers. Um, yeah, but it was really, really amazing just to watch that process and to watch um, you know, an 18-month year old at the time it was like just a year like playing with it, and actually it was completely safe and just knowing that all those minerals are going in. Yeah, it was really beautiful, and then so we both both Miley and I both took a bit of that clay, and um, yeah, I've got a bit to kind of maybe process at some point. Don't know what I'm gonna do with it just yet, but amazing.

Nick 29:35

How big's the borehole? How wide is it? What's the diameter? Um whatever that is, like and we need Kathleen here to measure it. About six inches um 15 centimetres.

Lora 29:48

Yeah.

Nick 29:49

That's crazy that so much stuff can come out just from like a hole that small.

Lora 29:52

Yep, yeah.

Nick 29:53

I want to see it. I want to see this now.

Lora 29:55

Thing is, it's not that amazing. It's not that amazing. People are like, oh, can we come see the borehouse? It's literally like like a hole. Like you just like you can't see anything. But it's the stuff how you explain it that came out of it that is like, well, what do you mean fish bones? Sangate, it's boring.

Nick 30:13

No, no, sangate it, it's boring.

Lora 30:15

Really?

Nick 30:15

It's boring. That's why they make a borehouse.

Lora 30:19

Sorry, that's terrible. So good. So good.

Nick 30:25

So we had um we had Emma who's uh in charge of the Essex Witch Museum in there. And it's really interesting because you think like back in the days, people were getting persecuted for like using the land for for medicine, you know, like these cunning folk and like the witches were the people that would actually go out foraging and like finding herbs and things like that as well. So it's mad that like the connection to land in that ethnobot ethnobotany. How many times can I say it today? Ethnobotany, you know, like and people who sort of forgot about the craft a lot, did they? I don't know. Yeah. Was I just rambling?

Lora 30:58

No, but this is where I always want to come in, and and people always just say, Yeah, uh, you know, witches were persecuted for being out on the land. I I think that is such a narrow perspective on actually what was going on. If we look at the history, it's the feudal system was being replaced by capitalism. Yeah, and in that time, that's when all of those um, you know, so persecute people on the land, remove those people from the land, and in and when land became asset, when land became a capital to be bought and sold. Prior to that, land wasn't something that was that was sold or bought in that way, and um and that's what makes it really, really interesting.

Nick 31:39

So it says stop living off the land.

Lora 31:41

Yep, stop finding it. I'm gonna make you pay for it. It was got you know you're not.

Nick 31:47

Get off my hawthorn.

Lora 31:48

Exactly, exactly. No, not get off my hawthorn. The reason why hawthorn has been, you know, sorry, this is like the geeky part, but it's so important is that the hawthorn is the most common shrub or plant or tree that you see in the UK. And the reason for that is because that it was planted as a row to keep people off. So it's basically the first living fence, and that's why you see it so commonly. It's spiky, it's spiky, it's got hawthorn, it will keep you out of the land. But the leaves are full of vitamins, yes, so you can eat them as you go, you know. We'll nourish you, but we might stab you also like you know, and I think that yeah, so it's really interesting. It was a way to keep people off the land, but you know, and uh it's a very prolific also way to regain uh power as well back from that relationship, you know, going and taking three hawthorn berries or three whore berries is kind of like saying, you know, up yours, up yours landowners, up yours, landowners. I'm you know still. I'm still having a bit because I can and I know what it is. Yeah, and you don't. Then maybe you do.

Nick 32:58

Do people, you know, if if you're out um foraging and stuff, do people still like look at you like you're maybe like a bit weird or something? Or um is everyone just fascinated?

Lora 33:06

Yeah, yeah, it always depends on the you know, I haven't really had lots and lots and lots of you know negative comments, but a couple of them did come from the Homelanders Parent Presence book when we were gathering um stories and recipes for that, and going out as a big group of women. You know, sometimes we were 20 women, all from different backgrounds, and you know, and at that point you'd often find men maybe approaching us and being like, you know, what are you doing? You know, because we'd be seen to be a bit, yeah. What the landowners were not landowners, just fellows.

Nick 33:42

I've had that before. When I've been even picking Blackberries, people are like, Oh you know, you can buy them in Tesco.

Lora 33:47

Really?

Nick 33:47

Yeah.

Lora 33:50

Well, why would I want to do that if they're free here?

Nick 33:53

I've got a massive bowl here for free.

Lora 33:55

Yeah, it's bunkers. Oh, yeah. But yeah, so yeah, it's not it's not been so bad. And I think you know, always have an a chat and try and educate them around certain things, but you know, sometimes not if I don't fancy it. Okay, yeah, you know, sometimes it can be hard work, yeah. Exactly, and it's not always not always alright to stop and have a chat. But yeah, usually it's alright.

Nick 34:17

Usually people are quite cool. I think loads of people are just fascinated, they just don't know about stuff. Like my my wife's constantly trying to get my kids to learn what the trees are, and she'll say, What's that? and they'll still just say a tree. She'll be so annoyed. She said, I knew all the trees when I was younger.

Lora 34:35

Wow, yeah, it's so important.

Nick 34:36

I don't think a lot of kids don't know the trees or anything.

Lora 34:39

You know, there's that um there's like a little meme that that's gone around and it shows you all the different logos. So you've got like Lacoste logo, yeah, uh, don't know, all these different clothing logos, goochie done and that. And it's like how many without the wording underneath it, how many of these, bearing in mind, Lacoste is like a what is it, a crocodile? So how many can you recognise? How many of these can you recognise? And everyone's like, oh my god, I can see I ran, I know all of those. But then the other one is just like, you know, can you recognise a sycamore, oak, and an ash? And you know, and for me, I'm just like, yes, yes, yes, I was totally winning. Yeah, totally winning. But then the other side is that, and unfortunately, that is that's the feudal over the capital. That is that is essentially how it has changed our brain chemistry.

Nick 35:24

Could you recognise Lacosto? That's the important.

Lora 35:26

Hell yeah. Because I really wanted a lacrosse bag when I was 16. Yeah, and I got it.

Nick 35:33

Nice. Yeah, you didn't want a bag with an oak tree leaf on it, did you?

Lora 35:36

Definitely not. But then there now is. Conservatives.

Nick 35:39

Conservatives were in the oak the oak.

Lora 35:41

I wanted a mulberry handbag, please. You know, it was all these brands, you know, that people want that are actually Osprey, is another one, you know.

Nick 35:47

Oh, is it a bird? Really? I know no, but I don't know about the brand.

Lora 35:51

Oh, it's like a sports sports brand.

Nick 35:52

I know Will Ospreay, the wrestler from Essex.

Lora 35:54

There you go. Don't know him.

Nick 35:56

He's amazing.

Lora 35:57

Yeah, no. I don't know, I don't know him, but yeah, Ospreay's like back backpacks and stuff.

Nick 36:01

You don't know me, you don't know the aerial assassin, Will Ospreay from AEW. He's the absolute Don. No, sorry. Headline Wembley Stadium.

Lora 36:08

Not my culture, I don't know. He's good.

Nick 36:11

His finishing movie's called Cheeky Nando's. She's a good wrestler. I want to talk about the Saffron Trail. Because this is really interesting. I'd never heard of the Saffron Trail before. And this is like your new art project.

Lora 36:26

Yes.

Nick 36:27

What is the Saffron Trail?

Lora 36:29

Saffron Trail already exists. It's a 70-mile trail across Essex from South End all the way up to Saffron Walden, or from Saffron Walden all the way to South End, depends on which way you want.

Nick 36:39

And what? People were carrying Saffron.

Lora 36:41

No, I'd love that. I'd love that.

Nick 36:43

No, I know, but is that why it was called the Saffron Trail?

Lora 36:45

No, do you want to know really why it's called that? Because some guy in like 2001 decided that he wanted to create a route uh north to south or south to north um across Essex because the Essex Way goes east to west. Yeah. So it's like it's it was just to it was just to do that. And just another direction. Just another direction. So it makes like a cardinal cross on the map. Like that's it. However, yeah, for me, it was um back in 2021, I was part of it all happened in Champsford, so it all started in Champsford. I was part of the Ignite um like this Ignite Ideas lab where they got some funding from the EU and they were like, get back to the city centre post-COVID. Because that was a big thing, right? Getting people back into city centres. Everyone was like, the shops are gonna die, everything, no one wants to go back outside. So they were you know, it was this big consortium sort of thing between all these different kinds of people, cross-section of people, artists, planners, architects, business owners, but thinking about ways in which to get people back into city centre. And for me, I've been doing a lot of walking. Um, my mum had died in 2019, COVID came just be after that, and I'd spent a couple of weeks walking. Um and I did the Pilgrims Way, did the Essex Way. I just went out, it was the only thing that I could do during lockdown. I just took myself out four or five days at a time, just went. And um, there's something super cathartic about just going out.

Nick 38:19

It was really Were you were you sleeping rough as well, like when you're on the Essex Way? Yeah, so when you take a tent with you, yeah. Oh, I love that.

Lora 38:25

Yeah, washing a church, by the way, because it was it was COVID, so you couldn't there was like you know, it wasn't a thing. Going into a restaurant wasn't a thing.

Nick 38:34

So it was like wild camping, um, and which technically, you know, you can't do, but well you could do if you stayed in your tent for 23 hours a day.

Lora 38:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I didn't. It was just you know, we were wild camping irresponsibly.

Nick 38:51

Um what I seem interesting because I was following Man About Country and he did his brilliant culture esse project where he walked the Essex way. Yeah. Now he did that for like two weeks or something. Did you do the whole thing in five days?

Lora 39:03

Uh which the Saffron Trail? I did it. No, no, the Essex Way. Essex Day did it four or five.

Nick 39:08

Oh wow, I really want to do that. It looks fascinating. Yeah, it's great.

Lora 39:11

Epinforest, yeah, to Harricht.

Nick 39:14

And then you did the Saffron Trail as well, and that gave you the idea for this project.

Lora 39:17

No, so the get back to the city centre basically was this thing, and and I was kind we kind of ideated some ideas in on our table, and it was all about I was saying, you know, what happens if you just yeah, that was track back backtracking that story is because I'd just done all that walking and you know, and I was so passionate about the time, it's like we could walk into town because if you live on the periphery, you could just walk into town, leave your cars at home, and then grab a coffee on the way in, do your shopping. From one of 28 customers, yeah, exactly. Hilarious. Other independent alternatives are a favorite. Um, make your own if you're with Laura. Yeah, exactly. We can make it out of nettle seeds. Um we just need a dummy nest cafe, we've got nettle seeds. Exactly, that's what I'm about. Antifetamine and quantum nest nestle cafe.

Nick 40:06

Nettle cafe. Oh god, no sting you there, don't worry.

Lora 40:12

Sting you for your money, exactly. Um, but yeah, and so we were um yeah, chatting about that and then was given the opportunity to kind of take the idea a little bit further. So I spent two days just going out, had I did a little recce and landed at Pin, no, Paper Mill Lock.

Nick 40:30

Amazing, great cakes.

Lora 40:31

Yeah, I was walking along that that route, basically, where um just where is it? What's that museum?

Nick 40:38

The Museum of Power.

Lora 40:44

Samford Mill. Oh yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick 40:47

Great, fantastic. Yeah, I was very dystopian. Looks like a looks like an apocalyptic zombie hideout.

Lora 40:52

Exactly. So that's where I parked my car. And I and I got out and I was started walking along the little the waterfront there. And just as I got out of the car, walked literally about two minutes onto this onto this trail, and not even trail, I didn't even know it was a trail, footpath. And I looked out, and there was this like emblem. You know, you get the little emblem when you're out walking, and it was of a saffron focus. Oh, a trail marker, a trail marker, thank you, and it said the saffron way. Wow. And I was like, Saffron? Who this? Like, what are you doing here? Like, so I was very intrigued. So I like was kind of like had this like excitement, walked all the way, you know, then walked into city centre, and then was gonna get the the bus back to get the car. And just at that point, I was just thinking, like, I couldn't stop thinking, why is there saffron here in front of this old, you know, ball-bearing or whatever it is, like museum. And I couldn't, I couldn't stop thinking about that. And that's basically and it and that's where it started. So kept the idea there, and saffron for me is this plant of like of of not from Essex, it's not here. So I was like intrigued.

Nick 42:08

Oh, well, here's something interesting I found out on the internet. Go for it. Because I love etymology, I can't say it, but I love it.

Sangita 42:14

You can just did.

Nick 42:16

Um you know where place names come from, you know, like when you see stoke, it means like in the woods and things like that. So I was like, oh, I didn't even think about Saffron Walden, that Saffron was about Saffron. Yep. And Walden means Foreigner's Valley, apparently. Oh in old Yeodi language, foreigner's valley.

Lora 42:35

And I was just thinking, like, wow, in Saffron Foreigner's Valley.

Nick 42:38

Yeah, so in in medieval times, I mean saffron is really expensive now anyway, but back then it was murder expensive. It must have been so exotic to have saffron in Essex. Absolutely, it's crazy.

Lora 42:51

Yeah, so um Saffron Walden, right? The other side of or where the trail ends or begins, however you do it, used to be called Chapnan Walden, not Saffron Walden. So what's the etymony of Chapnan? I don't know, C-H-E-Y-P-E N or something like that. And um they they were growing saffron in the 13th, 14th, maybe late 13th, so 14th, 15th century in that area, and apparently, you know, how it got here is the whole story of it came in a pilgrim's boot or you know, there's all these stories as to how it arrived here, but I'm like, hmm, a pilgrim's boot, that's a very beautiful romantic story. I don't know if my recollection of British history is that good. Is romantic? So you know, I'm I'm intrigued, still, still still figuring that one out. But it could be it could have been traded, it could have been pillaged, it could have been, you know, who knows? So how it got here is part of the research that I would like to undertake as part of this project.

Nick 43:54

Especially, I suppose because we had so much wall trade and things like that. There's a lot of trade.

Lora 43:58

So the the the It was grown and cultivated in Saffron Molden, and it was up until you know it was it became such a thing for that area that they decided that they were gonna change the name because apparently you could smell it as you were entering, you know, from the villages and surrounding entries. You could smell the saffron so much that they decided to call it um Saffron Molden, and the Queen came to Saffron Molden and then re-uh renamed Jedder Bath in Saffron. I'd love to pouring saffron all over. Nowadays there is a couple of growers in Essex, and I think there's a growing in Suffolk, people still growing it. You can grow saffron in England. Bibba grows saffron.

Nick 44:41

This has blown my mind a little bit because I thought saffron was like some mega exotic thing that had to be grown in a different country, like somewhere really hot and dry, and then they'd bring sacks of it over here and they'd be like, oh, the weight is worth more than gold.

Lora 44:53

Yes, yeah, which it is, it still is being traded like that. But the the interesting thing around climate change and climate is that the people that are growing this saffron that you think of. So if you shut your eyes right now and you think of saffron growing, exoticism, those far-off places where it's dry, those places are currently facing severe drought, you know, in the mountainous regions, and those people who are growing those plants are having to seek work elsewhere, having to seek work in cities because they can't grow their their life, they you know that ancestral connection to a plant can't be continued because of our consumption of resources. And I think it's so interesting to to kind of watch that whole thing unfold and just know that okay, so that's climate, yeah. It's climate in action, yeah.

Nick 45:47

Yeah, and I suppose you know, even now, like we're starting to grow, you know, the vineyards are really popping up around Essex as well. So it might end up being called Pinot Grigio Walden in the future.

Lora 45:58

Um we're laughing, but but it could be the climate of is predicted to be, you know, the France of you know, we're growing a lot of German grapes in Essex at the moment. So because of yeah, German, German wine is doing quite well, German variety of grapes are doing well, but yeah, it's like southwest, which is like champagne, is gonna be the Champagne region. Oh, yeah. Like where my sister lives, yeah, like Hampshire. It's chalky, chalky ground. So that's like you wouldn't have to dig super super low to get those fish bones, it will be you know, it's like that stratification of the soil that we're talking about earlier that will give you a different quality of grape and how it really how it's gonna live in that soil. Here it's clayy, so we're German. Yeah, oh that's crazy. That is crazy. But I think isn't that interesting?

Nick 46:43

Just a shot and just Germany. So von Walden. Libralmilch Walden.

Lora 46:51

Pinot Walden, I love it.

Nick 46:53

It's amazing though, just like a shift of a couple of degrees, you know, in temperature. Yeah. Has just done that. And obviously, like if you if you look at England, you know, you can join it up with Europe, you can see where it broke away. So, like, like that same soil just runs through, the same the same bedrock runs through. And um, I mean Essex apparently is just gonna be like amazing for wine, like but the thing is, is like I don't know about this.

Lora 47:17

Coffee is a great example, like coffee culture, and now you've got that whole like hipster coffee vibe, and then you've got matcha coming in from like ancient traditions of Japanese. Do you know how matcha is even grown? No, no, it's bonkers, like the art form, the the artisan level of making matcha. So they plant this, it's basically green tea leaves, and they are grown um uh under like uh so green black tea is like fermented and and green tea is is not, and it's just kind of the way in which it's grown, and they cover it with like these special um sheets, special, they would have used a black, they use black plastic nowadays, but they used to use different forms of like uh ways to cover the plant, and and then they they pick it only when it's uh at its prime in this prime vitality, you know. It's really, really like this process, the process is really fascinating, and it is one that requires patience and time and attention, it's not something that you can do super fast.

Nick 48:22

Um that's not coming to Essex.

Lora 48:25

Matchup. No, but it's just like one of those things where you're just kind of like, this is a takeover of a culture, yeah, and the whole, the whole, so you know, the cut the whole culture of that plant and that lifestyle is just all of a sudden being served in one of 28 quaestas or charter. And you're like, and they're doing it in the machine, they're just like matchup lanes. Oh, what's your name? I'll write it on there, and then you're just like, my name's Aziz or something, they'll be like, What did you say, Alan? And it's like, you know, so I think it's really Laura Allen. I don't know, it's just thinking about you know the culture of these plants and actually how long it takes to build a relationship with it and the whole history around it.

Nick 49:04

And I suppose, you know, agriculturally, it's hard to scale it up that quickly, you know. So it uh are some people um some people being priced out of matcha now because we're obsessed with matcha.

Lora 49:15

Hell yeah. Same with cacao, and I think it's really interesting. But what what for me is so important in my work and what I want to continue for the future is like, how long does it take to build a culture around agriculture, right? Like this a long, long, long time. You know, here we're talking about apples. This is Apple Land, you know, yeah, there's gonna be no apples left, and all of a sudden, people of England are gonna start talking about wine. They don't know anything about wine. I'm not being rude, yeah. You know, it's like I can have a Merlot, but at the end of the day, you know, if you go to France, you're like, Can I have a Beaujolais? They'll be like, sorry, we don't do Beaujolais actually. We have a this and this, and it's like this heart, all of a sudden, we're trying to learn a new culture, yeah, really, really, really fast because it's fashionable and it's being like marketed. And for me, that's super interesting. So it a part of my work is like looking at how we can make these cultures accessible, but also looking at what's already here and how to kind of relate to it in the interplay, and then also we're talking about saffron, and all of a sudden it's relevant for my people, it's relevant for us, it's relevant for people that understand what saffron is and the culture is how do you use one thread of saffron in your food to turn your rice yellow? Yeah, and you know, and it's kind of those kind of things, and and and and that is an art that is taught intergenerationally, it's something that is that's passed down, it's something that's learned in relationship to the land, it's something that gives a pigment, it's something that that is that's cherished and has a place within a context, in a history, in a culture of a land, and all of a sudden, you know, we've got a new culture to learn about, a new culture to sell, and then that's when it becomes really complicated, when all of a sudden people need to learn about wine really, really, really quickly because they need to be vineyard specialists and you know how can we learn about grapes? How can this is what's going through my mind, and I'm not being rude, I'm just trying to like figure out within the speed of it how is the average apple farmer all of a sudden gonna learn about grapes and become a connoisseur of that of that plant in the same time that it's taken to like 30 generations of one family to teach that, and then the culture, the songs, the folklore, the music, yeah, everything that comes with that.

Nick 51:37

Yeah, this is really interesting because I was I was working with apple growers um with when I was working on a cider brand, and the um the guy that owned the orchard said, you know, brewers get to make a beer every every week if they want, right? Apple growers probably you're probably only gonna get 30 or 35 harvests in your whole career. Wow. Right? Because you know, you you know, when you gotta wait for the apples to grow. Yeah. So you know, it's a bit of trial and error, and you can't learn that fast. Yeah. Because you've got to wait a year, see what happens, learn from it, you know, and do it all again. Next year, prune. Yeah, and he said, Well, you know, it's quite a relaxed way of life, really, because you can't hurry anything. That's the good point.

Lora 52:18

You can't learn it that quickly, and I suppose it'd be the same with grapes, yeah, or or or you know, or matcha if we're gonna go that far.

Nick 52:24

But it's like we growing matcha in Essex, Essex matcha, come on, yeah.

Lora 52:29

I don't know, it's that it's that level of like, you know, what are we gonna do when we have to re-configure? And you know, that that exchange of knowledge is really important. But for me, so creativity, right? Culture, art, if we had to think about, you know, all of those pictures or in in the gallery that you were talking about, or the national gallery, all the bangers, all the bangers. They weren't there sitting, you know, pouring wine pictures, were they? No, they were drinking ale or they were drinking all sorts of things, and we've always had that exchange of plums. Imagine he was eating an apple because he was stuck and he was like, Oh my god, just gotta go forage an apple, you know, gotta go eat a hawthorn or eat an allberry.

Nick 53:10

Oi, Wayne, chuck us a crab apple.

Lora 53:12

Hey, Wayne, give us an apple, yeah. And now it's like, Oi, Wayne, give me a grape. You know, it's like it doesn't have it doesn't hit the same. I don't know. So for that, that exchange of culture is what's interesting to me, and how the overlays of you know, new folk music, new folk art, you know, not in a way that I try and like maybe spell folk with a cue, just it's that queerness around folk, like in in in all the senses, in terms of like that new generation of what it means to be from a land and have be constantly in dialogue with it whilst it's changing, whilst we're changing as a people, whilst we're creating a new generation of people. Like my son is like four nationalities, and he's growing up foraging from one land, it's changing. And I think that that is that's just where where I'm heading and where my question in his head and where my art is going is thinking about that that that same layering of the land.

Nick 54:12

Yeah, well, your son's gonna be more confused because he'd be like, Am I Essex or Suffolk?

Lora 54:18

Tractor boy.

Nick 54:19

Yeah, am I a tractor boy or a geyser?

Lora 54:22

That's a good one.

Nick 54:23

Am I a lemon squeezer?

Lora 54:25

Literally.

Nick 54:30

So how does the saffron trail, how does your art overlay with that? You know, your product you've got a big project next year.

Lora 54:37

Yeah. Um, so yeah, it's looking at three different water sites primarily along that Saffron Trail, along those 70 miles.

Nick 54:44

So a river crosses it quite a lot, goes through Chelmsford.

Lora 54:47

Yeah, there's quite a few rivers, but it's also like there's chalk streams, there's springs, there's an estuary, there's um ponds, there's all these different kinds of water sites, and at the moment, just looking, starting to delve into what those sites are, what they look like, what they mean, um, and who inhabits them, who like human and non-human, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And then the idea is then to get commissions for artists to respond to those sites, but also to make improvements and enhancements to those areas. So that could be a bat box, it could be a bench, it could be a a theatre performance, you know.

Nick 55:24

So and your ultimate goal of that as well is partly um extra accessibility for groups that don't often go into the countryside and for people to visit these areas that they wouldn't normally go to.

Lora 55:35

Always, and that's why it's on a public footpath. I don't have to make some special route, it's a route that already exists, it's already there, parts of it are really urban, parts of it are accessible for that reason, but parts of it are super rural and you can't get there. But if it's marketed enough, maybe you might go and try it out. But for me, I want it to be like this route that people can walk across. Like, you know, you might do the Camino de Santiago. Yes. Let's go do the Saffron Trail, you know, and creating a place where it's like, you know.

Nick 56:05

I love it when you have a walk with a purpose. And actually, like my wife's a landscape architect, and she and she she's always saying, you know, it's really nice when um, you know, in Holland, especially, you know, you get loads of little play spaces. You don't get one big playground, you get loads of little play spaces along a trail or something. And you know, it just makes you want to keep going, keep exploring more. Keep looking, yeah, and you know, and it and it's good because you know, as an adult, you're like, yeah, I can get the kids to walk a little bit further and stuff like that. But it's it's that discovery and that joy of you know, like finding things and and going on a little mission.

Lora 56:34

Exactly. And you might get little stamps along the way, ideally, you know, like you get those pilgrim passports, but you could get like Saffron Trail booklet, and it might be that you've got in a taxi um using a taxi in Chelpsford that's run by a Mohammed, and you know, it was Mohammed's taxis, I don't know, and you'll get a stamp for using that, or you might be going to a restaurant somewhere and get a stamp for visiting the restaurant, or you might end up at Saffron Hall, which is a state-of-the-art of a music venue, and go and listen to some amazing music and get a stamp. So it's that kind of like, or visit the theatre show, and that whole thing is connecting the route, or you know, staying in in a hotel run by a local family, you know, and or visiting a pub or going to the cricketers along the route and all of that.

Nick 57:18

One of my favourite things that I do in Essex, I I starts in Suffolk, but I did the Subway to see kayaking, right? Where you start in Subway and you kayak all the way down to Manning Tree. So cool, and it's so amazing. Like when you go through all the different landscapes, and there's little pubs along the way and stuff, and it's so fun, like stopping everywhere and then then the young farmers market in buers and stuff like that. But it's so nice to do something, there's a long route through through the landscape and it changes and seeing it change and change you at the same time. And also having such good laugh with your mates when you're doing it as well. But it's so nice to have just a destination in mind and just see what happens along the way. Yeah, and we saw so much amazing uh wildlife as well, it's brilliant.

Lora 57:56

Slow travelling, we don't do that enough, you know. We go away, we go to all different sorts of countries, and we do all these kind of things. But when was the last time you actually spent that long migrating from place A to place B? It's quite hard to do. Yeah, it's quite hard to do because we're not used to doing that anymore. And actually, that's the only way we used to have to walk really far. We used to have to, you know, it's in our DNA.

Nick 58:18

Yeah, yeah. Where am I gonna charge my phone?

Lora 58:23

Already charging the way.

Nick 58:25

Yeah, that's what you're gonna do. Map the 5G.

Lora 58:30

Love that, but also yeah, it's how about we uh charging ourselves and refueling ourselves and taking a moment to kind of re rewire a little bit our own our own self before we can even yeah, don't I don't think we could be creative in any other way, really. It's uh yeah.

Nick 58:45

I love that you were making ink. Yeah, were you making that from pitch, or was it what were you making your you were making inks from the land and then using them from c for calligraphy, which I think is amazing, like going back to these old school techniques.

Lora 59:01

Yeah, yeah.

Nick 59:01

How did you make your ink?

Lora 59:03

Um oak go ink is a really easy one that I use. Um yeah, uh so the practice for me is connecting, so yeah, the whole process really is understanding what's the medicinal properties of of an oak, where is it situated, what inhabits it, and how can then I also understand how to process and make pigment matter or uh paper or whatever it is from it. So yeah, with ink, uh with the oak ghouls, they are um full of tannins. Um, and then if you mix them with iron oxide, then it turns pitch black. So oak ghoul ink is the same ink that they use to write the Bible with.

Nick 59:47

Wow. Incredible. Yeah, and and you're using that for calligraphy.

Lora 59:50

Yeah, so yeah.

Nick 59:51

You should write your own Essex Bible, the Essex Ten Commandments of the Landscape.

Lora 59:56

Love that. Manifesto for Essex. I think there's already one. Mine would look very different, but yeah, and then and then that practice is kind of yeah, embedded in all sorts. So thinking about saffron as the colour that they used to they used to dye the saffron, sorry, going back to saffron, but they were dyeing the um the wool and that the wool that was that was you know being collected from around these parts, and then they would dye it and send it to Ireland to be woven and all sorts of things. Really?

Nick 1:00:23

So the dye dyed yellow with saffron.

Lora 1:00:25

Yeah, yeah.

Nick 1:00:26

So everyone was like, it's like nice yellow sweater. Yeah, it's essence will in it.

Lora 1:00:30

Yeah, exactly.

Nick 1:00:32

It's like saffron. Yeah, pure saffron is this.

Lora 1:00:36

Buddhist monks will dye their cloaks orange, you know, saffron, it's that kind of, but also then you're embodying the medicinal properties of the plant when you're wearing it. It's funny, we're all wearing synthetic colours, and it's also thinking about you know how once upon a time we'd all be super clean and have naturally dyed clothes, naturally dyed things, and yeah.

Nick 1:00:55

I I love like the history of colours, you know. Like in Roman times, apparently purple was mind-blowing. Yeah, it was so expensive. And if you saw someone in purple, you would just be like, oh my god. So it's only like the really richest people would have purple, yeah, purple togas, you know, and everyone would be like, oh my god, because they weren't even used to seeing the colour purple. Yeah, yeah.

Lora 1:01:15

Imagine that when you you'd have never seen a colour, yeah, because it's not in your landscape, yeah.

Nick 1:01:21

Yeah, and then suddenly someone's coming along, it's like virtual reality 3D, everything all at the same time.

Lora 1:01:25

Yeah, that's that's a different world, isn't it? It's crazy. Well, I'll tell you what I learned today.

Nick 1:01:30

Yeah, go on. Oh, are you wrapping up?

Lora 1:01:32

No, I'll tell you what I learnt though, because it's bugging me, that's why I have to say it. I didn't realise Saffron Warden was somewhere that was named that because of Saffron. I didn't either. But I'm really shocked, yeah, because I just thought saffron was from our countries, yeah, back home countries. I didn't think they made that here. Yeah.

Nick 1:01:52

I can't believe they could I can't believe they could grow saffron in Essex either.

Lora 1:01:55

Yeah, well I'm that's sorry, they're gonna be able to do that. Essex is exotic. Telling you. And it was so it was apparently the best, or you know, everyone has that accolade, right, about their own produce, but it was valued very highly. Yeah, if you wanted to find some more things out about the colours, of currently exhibiting at the Welcome Collection in London.

Nick 1:02:20

Oh, I love that place. Really? Yes. What's going on there?

Lora 1:02:23

Um, Thirst, in search of fresh water. So it's a massive exhibition with um, I don't know how many artists and researchers and artifacts um are there. And it's on until 1st of February 2025.

Nick 1:02:37

Oh wow, and this is opposite. Yeah. 2026.

Lora 1:02:40

2026, sorry.

Nick 1:02:41

And this is opposite Euston Square station. Yes. I love it. There's a hidden Picasso there.

Lora 1:02:45

Mm-hmm.

Nick 1:02:46

Over the door.

Sangita 1:02:47

I didn't know that.

Nick 1:02:47

Yeah, if you go in and you turn around and there's a there's a really, really cool Picasso there. OG.

Lora 1:02:52

Yeah, wow.

Nick 1:02:52

Yeah, it's one of like London's hidden treasures.

Lora 1:02:54

Wow.

Nick 1:02:55

It's fantastic.

Lora 1:02:55

Yeah. How do people find you, Laura? Um, Instagram is probably a really good place. Come here if you're insta. At Laura L-O-R-A-M Aziz, A-Z-I-Z underscore.

Nick 1:03:09

And and what about Weird Flora? Is that is that is that are you focusing more on the Laura Aziz?

Lora 1:03:14

Yeah, Weird Flora has melted into the past.

Nick 1:03:18

Yeah.

Lora 1:03:19

Yeah.

Nick 1:03:20

So no no one go and follow Weird Flora then.

Lora 1:03:22

No, because it doesn't exist anymore on Instagram. It's Laura Aziz. I know, it's just because it's Laura Aziz underscore. Yeah, thank you. Underscore, I love it.

Nick 1:03:30

That's wicked. Now I you know, I need to do more foraging and I need to do more country walks. I had a foraging book, right? And from what I could understand in England, it was like um brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. April, May, June, January, winter. Just eat some Hawthorne. Just eat some Hawthorne for like six months, and then you're back to like back to like all the other stuff. So I need to go more foraging and explore more things to do.

Lora 1:03:55

You need to do the saffron trail.

Nick 1:03:56

I do need to do the saffron trail, but also I like I love doing a bit of environmental art as well. I think my kids were learning about like Andy Gold's. Is it Andy Gold's wherever he does all the leaf art and stuff like that? I love all that temporal, temporary landscape art and things and just having fun and exploring. I like damming little streams. That's so fun.

Lora 1:04:15

Well with sticks.

Nick 1:04:16

With sticks, yeah, it's such a great activity. Me and my kids can do it for hours, and my wife's like, oh, can guys, can we just go home now? No, we're being beavers.

Sangita 1:04:25

Cute.

Lora 1:04:25

Oh, I love it.

Nick 1:04:27

Yeah, so get outdoors, everyone. Get your hands muddy, get some blue clay on you, get some mud on your stilettos. Yeah, it's like aerate those lawns. All right. If anyone wants to learn about, you know, the land and ethnobotany and things like that, where's a good place to start?

Lora 1:04:43

In your own back garden. If you don't have a back garden, then just go outside, look up. Is the moon out? Is the sun out? Have a little look. Start start equating yourself with that. But if you don't have a back garden, then look outside your front door. You might find a little plant in between the on the in between the cracks. And if you walk past that plant every single day, try and find out what it is, what it's called.

Nick 1:05:07

Where can you go and find out what it's called?

Lora 1:05:09

So there my favourite way would be to um observe it. So to journal it in your own time. So look at that plant, you walk past it one day. You don't need to know what it is straight away. Yesterday you weren't that bothered.

Sangita 1:05:24

Yeah.

Lora 1:05:25

And then um tomorrow you might go out and uh or the next season you might see that it's putting up a a a flower, have a look at the flower, what does it look like? And then you might be like, oh, that's a dandelion, actually, because I know where that is, it's got a big yellow thing. But whereas before you didn't know because it was just the leaves, right? So just is your first point of call. And if you can't wait, then you can always, you know, take a picture. You could always ask someone who's standing next to you, they might know. You'd be surprised, they might know. Um, you could take a picture and then you can um you can upload it to certain different groups. There's lots of Facebook. Groups for um plant identification in Essex.

Nick 1:06:03

Google Lens is good.

Lora 1:06:04

Sometimes I'm not I'm not a fan of that.

Nick 1:06:08

Okay.

Lora 1:06:09

Because there's no interaction whatsoever. It's giving you one answer.

Nick 1:06:13

Oh yeah. And you don't know what's right on.

Lora 1:06:15

And you have no so the Facebook group is really interesting because they can give you a variety of that species.

Sangita 1:06:21

Oh yeah, cool.

Lora 1:06:22

So plant, yeah, plants could be like, you know, you could have so many different types of hawthorn, but your app might tell you that one and you might never learn about the other varieties. So the conversation around it is so important. Ask people because in the age of AI, the age of the internet, where we're so used to hearing one answer, that's not good enough. We need to think about it.

Nick 1:06:41

And then you might find out these amazing like Billy Wicks molly dishwasher work names for things.

Lora 1:06:46

Exactly. And someone might say, Oh, that's nosebleed. And you're like, what? And the other person's like, No, that's Yarrow. And that's where it gets interesting. And then you're like, otherwise, you have to think of its in its Latin name, and the Latin name is only one way to understand that plant. You might have walked past that plant all the time and called it Annoying Joe, for example, because it got seeds on you. Sticky Willy. Sticky Willy is another one. And I invite you to start naming your environment, name the plants what are around you, however you like to name them. How do they make you feel when you walk past them? How does it make you smell? What do you smell? And maybe you name it after that. And start feeling your way through it because that's the only way that we're ever going to get anywhere, is by not having somebody tell you what it is.

Sangita 1:07:30

Yeah.

Lora 1:07:31

You have to be willing to show up to that party and ask some questions and and and feel your way through because otherwise, you know, somebody can tell you a name and you'll forget, and that'll be the end of that. It's it's not enough just to know a name, it's it's beyond that, I think. So, and then that's when you can start playing around with colours and starting wanting to eat it and start wanting to create a whole trail out of something, you know. You don't know where it's gonna take you. So love it. Be curious, yeah.

Nick 1:07:56

Be curious, everyone. Yeah, look, look, look up, look up from your phone.

Lora 1:07:59

Look up sticky willy. Don't do not Google sticky willy, throw it on someone's back, cleaver. Love it.

Nick 1:08:13

Um, so get it, this is good. I I I mean I go on a I go out for a walk every weekend. Do you get out of the city much?

Lora 1:08:20

Do I get out of this city?

Nick 1:08:22

Yeah, do you go out for walks and stuff?

Lora 1:08:24

Not much. I do when I've got my grandbabies.

Nick 1:08:27

You should go and get your sterilato's muddy.

unknown 1:08:29

Yeah.

Nick 1:08:30

Have you been on a rope swing recently? No. So fun. Go out like um just go out, go out and see it.

Lora 1:08:36

Go mash up my back, yeah.

Nick 1:08:37

Well, even worse than it already is. Let's do it. Go and beaver stream up.

Lora 1:08:44

Well, I loved what Laura just said about find a plant and name it. Yeah, yeah. Now my neighbour's plant comes into my garden. So, do you know what? I'm gonna call it annoying. Yeah. Right? And then I'm gonna go question him now and go, You're an annoying plant. What's that all about? Because actually, I didn't think of it about looking at plants, naming plants. I've learned so much from you today. Things that I would just never have thought of.

Nick 1:09:06

Yeah, it's brilliant. It's really exciting. And to think about like the whole environment as one huge big art piece of art, really, and culture. It's so interesting. Not just little individual things, and it's changing every second, every millisecond. Every second. Full moon! Thank you for listening to iCreative. Uh, follow us at at r.ucreative.podcast. Something like that. Just look it up. Uh, thank you, Nick. No, yeah, no problem. Yeah, no problem. Yeah, it's good. I'm gonna do loads of stuff for charity next week. Uh, thank you, Sangator. Thank you, Nick. Yeah, no problem. Yeah, do a lot of good work for charity, don't like to talk about it. Thanks, Adam Whitaker from Locker Media. Get out of my studio. Woo woo! I've got an early start. Um, and thank you very much, Laura.

Lora 1:09:48

Thanks for having me.

Nick 1:09:49

Yeah, really thank you for coming. Yeah, so um, join best guest ever with Marley. Thank you. Bless you, yeah. Oh, what can we say on the way out? I don't know. I'm gonna decide it's full full moon.

Lora 1:10:02

Everybody that's listening, let's hit suck on water.