“To know a place, you must speak its language”

In her meditative film “Wildwood’, artist Innes Letch combines her evocative cinematography with spoken word by Iman West to question whether our verbal aptitude is becoming lost and along with it, the connection to our wildlands.

Boundaries - Innes Letch

View Innes Letch’s film Wildwood.

Read more about the inspiration for making it here…

‘Wildwood’ Blog Post by Innes Letch

Dizzard Wood, home to some of Britain’s oldest tree species, remains secluded on North Cornwall’s unsympathetic coastline. The stunted woodland is predominantly formed of Dwarf Oaks which host a community of complex life forms. 131 species of rare lichens thrive in the surrounding air, pure in the valley beyond our encroaching society. However, other ancient woodlands in Britain haven’t weathered so well, threatened by the likes of you and I. As environmental writer Kumar-Rao said, ‘Precious places are by definition fragile’, thus they have fallen prey to the anthropogenic progress which has become so fixated upon in the Global North. Expanding infrastructure, housing developments, invasive diseases, pollution, and climate change are causing grave harm to the millions of organisms and flora and fauna which live both above and beneath the forest floor. 

This destruction of nature is arguably a symptom of our divorce from ancestral land. In the face of our increasingly urban society, it is easy to overlook our wise, long-limbed predecessors. Often de-credited, trees are a valuable companion in the fight against species extinction, water pollution and climate change. It is our due diligence to speak of the forceful eradication of our arboreal kind, for the benefit of all living beings across the planet. 

Wildwood is a meditative reflection exploring the importance behind language. Through the film, I take an inclusive approach to both visual and poetic communication in nature. I question if our verbal aptitude is becoming lost and along with it, the connection to our wildlands. Language derives from place, creating a deeper understanding and appreciation for Mother Earth. To know a place, you must speak its language. As Robert Macfarlane says, ‘without a name in our mouths, an animal or a place struggles to find purchase in our minds or our hearts’. We have the opportunity to champion the healing and protection of Britain’s remaining wild spaces through prescribing language which shows reverence to all sacred woodlands, peatlands, meadows, waterways and seas that so generously surround us.

Filmed & Edited by Innes Letch

Spoken word by Iman West

Scored by Jonas Pehlke

Inspired by the words of Robert Macfarlane, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Arati Kumar-Rao, Roger Deakin & Nan Shepherd.

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