Common Ground exhibition

About Common Ground

Accompanied by a field recording of birdsong, this image is a distillation of the photobook Great North Wood created from photographs made over a year spent in the woods.

James Berrington conceived of this piece after spending time in nature during lockdown. Having struggled with his mental health for most of his life, Covid-19 illness stopped him in his tracks and led to a mental health crisis that required a simplifying and paring back of daily life.

Walking and spending time in his local woods became an essential part of his daily routine. Finding space for self-refection and calm during these walks, alongside intensive therapy, he was able to examine his childhood trauma about his sexuality and deeply embedded but unacknowledged internalised homophobia.

In their messiness, the untamed woods provided a much-needed antidote to his unrelenting drive for perfectionism – this feeling of ‘never being good enough’ that was a byproduct of growing up gay in a heteronormative world.

Making and talking about Common Ground began an ongoing process of self-acceptance for James, just as sitting with the plants and animals, the sounds of the birds, and the smell of the earth in the woods gave him the breathing space to begin his mental health recovery. 

Common Ground links the specific location of the Great North Wood with wider ideas about the role and meaning of the English landscape and the symbol of the oak tree. It is a personal response to the English landscape that questions the value of that landscape today whilst sharing the beauty and impact of nature and birdsong.

Spending time in this ancient woodland was part of James’ mental health recovery and led him to question ideas around identity and, in the context of a seemingly shifting national identity pre- and post- Brexit, examine ideas of an Englishness rooted in myth, legend, clichés, stereotypes and symbolism. 

The Great North Wood was once a vast area of worked coppices and wooded commons that stretched 7 miles from Deptford to Croydon. The images in the photobook were made in the largest remaining fragment – covering just 25 hectares – where the woodland is incredibly varied; in parts dense, others more open, a disused railway line once painted by Camille Pissarro runs through the middle. The current woodland’s presence and appearance is a result of the actions of those who have fought to protect, and now maintain it.

We see this human influence in the accompanying photo etchings – Oak of England I and Oak of England III – where these ancient trees are strapped up, propped up and supported by man-made interventions. While these actions can be recognised as veneration and care given to preserving history and nature, they may also be viewed as the shoring up of a decaying idea of Englishness.

The title Common Ground has a layered meaning, referring to the idea of Englishness, and to the land we share with each other as citizens. It connects us to history – to common land and the right to roam. Today, with increasing polarisation and the rise of nationalism, this idea of commonality and social contract is under attack.

About the artist

James is a visual artist based in London. His practice is located in an expanded photography, including print making, text, sound, and moving image, and explores the intersection of personal and universal narratives.

His interests encompass diverse subjects such as the English landscape, the nuanced meanings embedded in ordinary objects, the significance of home and the complexities of housing markets.

Common Ground sits alongside recent work reimagining Great North Wood for the screen and research examining ideas of utopian communities, faith and healing.

Find out more about his work and practice here.