The Learned Pig

29/03/2022

MOON AND MORE: it's an honour to publish this beautiful writing, with accompanying photography, by Lori Mairs (1961- 2021) who lived in the forest as caretaker of Woodhaven Nature Conservancy in Kelowna, Canada

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/moon-and-more/10652

09/03/2022

A fascinating new journal has landed. ECHTRAI is, in the words of its editorial team, “a journal of writing and visual art, dedicated to bringing together the work of a diverse cross-section of writers and artists with an interest in landscapes lost, abandoned, forgotten, and mythic. Written works will include a wide variety of essays, poetry, poetic prose, short fiction, experimental hybrids, academic papers, and republished works on a bi-annual basis”.

We caught up with ECHTRAI's founder, Baz Nichols to find out more.

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/echtrai/10621

07/03/2022

A GOOD LIFE / SUBSISTENCE: two recent poems with accompanying artwork by Linnea Ryshke, extracts from Kindling (Lantern Publishing and Media)

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/linnea-ryshke-a-good-life-subsistence/10590

Two poems with accompanying artwork by Linnea Ryshke, extracts from Kindling (Lantern Publishing and Media, September 2021).

24/11/2021

After …

days of this – falling asleep –
perhaps the sixth night, wildoats would dance
in front of my open eyes, my bedroom walls corn
swaying – waiting …

to be picked clean.

New poetry by Mark Goodwin with accompanying landscape by Dominique Cameron

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/i-recall-recalling-straw/10567

New poetry from the fields by Mark Goodwin, with accompanying artwork by Dominique Cameron.

12/11/2021

Delighted to share this incredible essay from Mandy-Suzanne Wong's new collection, LISTEN, WE ALL BLEED, published this month by New Rivers Press.

The essay focuses on the work of artist Kathryn Eddy and is a dizzying mix of art criticism, activist call-to-arms/legs, and intense, tremoring evocatioon of the experience of the work itself.

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/mandy-suzanne-wong.../10526

11/11/2021

Delighted to share this incredible essay from Mandy-Suzanne Wong's new collection, LISTEN, WE ALL BLEED, published this month by New Rivers Press.

The essay focuses on the work of artist Kathryn Eddy and is a dizzying mix of art criticism, activist call-to-arms/legs, and intense, tremoring evocatioon of the experience of the work itself.

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/mandy-suzanne-wong-kathryn-eddy-turning-tables/10526

01/11/2021

It's 1st November and our book of the month is this rich tender, beautiful narrative of q***r love and loss and house-plants: POTHOS by Rosa Campbell, published by Broken Sleep Books

https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/rosa-campbell-pothos

Released 31st July 2021 // 158 pages // 978-1-913642-58-7 Epipremnum aureum, devil's ivy, or (somewhat erroneously) pothos is not special. It is not symbolically useful, it is not rare, it is not hard to grow or care for. But in the aftermath of unexpected death, an impossible-to-kill houseplant mig...

11/10/2021

DIGGING IN THIS DIRT: an essay on the uneven process of settling into farm life - by Josh Mabie, who with his wife Kerstin, co-owns Pied Beauty Farm in Wisconsin.

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/josh-mabie-digging-in-this-dirt/10088

With his wife Kerstin, Josh Mabie co-owns Pied Beauty Farm, a no-spray orchard, flower farm, and apiary just outside of Stoughton, Wisconsin.

01/10/2021

It's 1st October and our book of the month is the fascinating & gorgeous CARTOGRAPHIES OF THE IMAGINATION, a rich compendium of drawing, design & writing exploring the outer limits of maps & mapping

https://cartographiesoftheimagination.com/Book

27/09/2021

BEANS: a brilliant new personal essay by gardener-writer Mandy Goddard, making connections between farming, protest, and the beautiful ‘yin yang’ bean

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/beans/10476

A new personal essay by gardener-writer Mandy Goddard, making connections between farming, protest, and the beautiful 'yin yang' beans.

03/09/2021

September's book of the month is the utterly brilliant EPIC by Camilla Nelson- a lyrical/satirical feminist reworking of the Great Walk as Great Undertaking

A gorgeous object: funny, furious, local, alive with crackling sounds/thoughts

Guillemot Press

https://www.guillemotpress.co.uk/poetry/camilla-nelson-epic

27/08/2021

Behind the muffled, dripping hedge I hear
The half-shout of an unknown tongue
The polytunnel rises smooth, repeating
Grey in the grey of early skies

MEADOW GRASS / UNMAKE THE LAND

a pair of new poems on rural land and labour by Hannah Green

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/meadow-grass-unmake-the-land/10447

"In the tracks of grazing cattle and the oak tree’s swell" - a pair of new poems about labour and the land by writer Hannah Green.

25/08/2021

What's it like to be an artist on a farm? Is it possible - or even desirable - to integrate an art practice with a growing practice?

Rosa Farber looks back on being our inaugural artist-in-residence

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/residency-reflections/10428

03/08/2021

COMPOST: we're delighted to share these thoughts on art, over-production & ecology by the brilliant Kathrin Böhm.

The images are from the artist's current take-over at The Showroom, London - until 16 October

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/compost-turning-the-heap/10368

Kaing time to reflect: artist Kathrin Böhm on sustaining an art practice while resisting the pressure of endlessly producing more projects.

01/08/2021

Happy 1st August! Our book of the month is the richly evocative launch issue of ECHTRAI JOURNAL - on "landscapes lost, abandoned, forgotten, mythic".

Edited by BG Nichols with art, writing etc by Cal Flynn, Emily Hesse, Dominic Cooper, Brighid Black & many more

https://placefieldnotes.wordpress.com/echtrai-journal/

EDITORIAL AND CREATIVE DIRECTION – B G Nichols / Bran Graeme Nairne ASSOCIATE EDITORS – Martyn Hudson, Emily Hesse COVER ARTWORK: Pam Petro FORMAT: A5, Perfect Bound, 120 PAGES. PRICE: …

21/07/2021

THE FOUR SEASONS: A collaborative essay by Chris Turnbull and Cecilie Bjørgås Jordheim. The project documents an abandoned black walnut grove in Kemptville, Ontario, through acoustic recordings and observation.

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/the-four-seasons/10339

15/07/2021

ESSAYS ON DOG WALKING, I & II: we're absolutely delighted to republish these two poems from Thinking with Trees, the brilliant new debut collection by Jason Allen-Paisant

published by Carcanet

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/jason-allen-paisant-essays-on-dog-walking-i-ii/10314

Two poems from Thinking with Trees, the brilliant debut collection from Jason Allen-Paisant - published by Carcanet.

12/07/2021

FORAGING DINNER: an intimate evening of creative food and conversation set within the magical paper exhibition, greenhouse & gardens at Omved. Part of Cartographies of the Imagination

Thu 29 July, 7pm

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cartographies-of-the-imagination-foraging-dinner-tickets-154434633145

An intimate evening of creative food and conversation set within the magical paper exhibition, greenhouse and gardens at Omved.

01/07/2021

July is here! And our book of the month is Florilegia by Annabel Dover - a stange, beautiful response to the life and work of botanist, photographer & cyanotype trail-blazer Anna Atkins (published by Moist Books)

https://www.waterstones.com/book/florilegia/annabel-dover/9781913430047

30/06/2021

"To map a place is to create a whole new one... Maps have the capacity to enact, translate, discover and create... to map is not an exercise that remains neutral."

Co-curator Kirsty Badenoch introduces CARTOGRAPHIES OF THE IMAGINATION - a month-long experimental drawing festival, opening in London this Friday!

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/cartographies-of-the-imagination/10251

29/06/2021

Opening this Friday!

CARTOGRAPHIES OF THE IMAGINATION - exhibition & durational drawing laboratory with workshops, dinners, salons and more. Taking place at OmVed Gardens in Highgate, London 2 - 31 July

Here's the project's co-curator, artist & architect Kirsty Badenoch, to explain more

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/cartographies-of-the-imagination/10251

Cartographies of the Imagination explores the outer limits of what a map can be, interrogating the bit of lost land that falls between the pages of an atlas, journeying to...

20/05/2021

MAKING PARADISE: a little sample of the new exhibition at the Aga Khan Centre in London - featuring Islamic geometry, traditional ceramics, gold, embroidery, hand-stitched textiles, collage & more

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/making-paradise-islamic-garden-design/10133

Making Paradise at the Aga Khan Centre, London is an exhibition dedicated to historic and contemporary Islamic Garden Design.

18/05/2021

Le Président & The Crocodile Feeder: two new poems from Cara Waterfall - connecting anger & animals in post-civil-war Côte d’Ivoire

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/le-president-the-crocodile-feeder/10115

  Le Président: Seven Days In the beginning, Le President, flattened his ancestral villagei, to create his idea of heaven. “Let there be no jungle”; & there was no jungle....

17/05/2021

"In poems, as for gardens, form and content are indivisibly, undecideably, part and parcel of each other. "

Delighted to publish this beautiful new essay by Alice Entwistle, Professor of Contemporary Poetry and Textual Aesthetics at the University of South Wales (Cardiff)

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/alice-entwistle-in-the-poemgarden/10107

A personal essay by Professor Alice Entwistle of the University of South Wales exploring the many connections between poetry and gardening,

01/05/2021

Happy 1st of May!

Our book of the month is the vital 'I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain' by Anita Sethi

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/i-belong-here-9781472983930/

One of Waterstones Best Books to Look Forward to in 2021The Bookseller's Book of the MonthA Guardian 2021 Literary Highlight"I knew in every bone of my body, in every fibre of my being, that I had to report what had happened, not only for myself but to help stop anyone else having to go through what...

08/04/2021

Important new essay on food, ethics and the land from Col Gordon in the Scottish Highlands

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/col-gordon-lessons-from-seed/10039

A personal essay by seed researcher and baker Col Gordon on the complex relationships between plants, people and place.

07/04/2021

Help support Bamff Wildland - rewilding 450 acres of upland farm in Scotland, restoring dynamic natural processes for wildlife and the climate, including BEAVERS!

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/bamff-wild-land

To rewild over 450 acres of upland farm in Scotland, restoring dynamic natural processes for wildlife and the climate.

01/04/2021

Happy 1st of April! Our book of the month is this super-smart & utterly charming oddity of a novel-as-bestiary, Yan Ge's Strange Beasts of China

published by Tilted Axis Press, translated by Jeremy Tiang

https://www.tiltedaxispress.com/store/strange-beasts-of-china

01/04/2021

For sale as part of the , A3 conte on drafting film, peregrine falcon, 2021, £200 + p&p.
Please see my instagram for more recent work and updates.

01/03/2021

1st of March is here! And our book of the month is the brilliant, fascinating, vital GREEN UNPLEASANT LAND by Corinne Fowler - exploring the colonial past of rural England. Such an important book right now.

https://www.peepaltreepress.com/books/green-unpleasant-land

Green Unpleasant Land explores the countryside’s repressed colonial past and demonstrates its importance as a source of ideas about Englishness.

08/02/2021

4 GENERATIONS OF WOMEN TOPOGRAPHY: fragments of text, film and photography by artist Tereza Stehlikova from a long-term family project in South Bohemia...

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/tereza-stehlikova-4-generations-of-women-topography/10001

01/02/2021

It's 1st of February and time for a new book of the month. Our recommendation is the completely brilliant YES, I AM A DESTROYER by Mira Mattar, published by Ma Bibliothèque

https://mabibliotheque.cargo.site/Mira-Mattar-YES-I-AM-A-DESTROYER-2020

Mira Mattar YES, I AM A DESTROYER 2020 I travel far across the city, cut it knowingly, concealing behind me the entrances to tunnels,...

22/01/2021

What does the rotten-egg funk of coastal seaweed tell us about cause & effect in the Anthropocene?

Writer Andrew Furman on MACROALGAE MATTERS...

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/sargassum-macroalgae-matters/9989

Seaweed in a time of climate crisis: an encounter with a rotten seashore funk prompts writer Andrew Furman to discover more about sargassum.

22/12/2020

The Learned Pig

ETERNAL FOREST: we're delighted to present a tiny slice of
Evgenia Emets' incredible ongoing project - combining painting and mapping, poetry and performance to transform human relationships with biodiversity, time and the sacred...

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/evgenia-emets-eternal-forest/9641

16/12/2020

ETERNAL FOREST: we're delighted to present a tiny slice of
Evgenia Emets' incredible ongoing project - combining painting and mapping, poetry and performance to transform human relationships with biodiversity, time and the sacred...

https://www.thelearnedpig.org/evgenia-emets-eternal-forest/9641