Amanda Jackson
Can you introduce us to the concept of an Eco Village. How does your own standard of living align with the communities beliefs? In what ways do you feel a sense of belonging and acceptance? Is your camera a part of this process of finding home?
I don’t think that there is one singular concept for an eco village. I think people bring their own ideas of what they expect from life in an eco village and that can be where both learning and conflict arise. Whilst never being a member of an eco village myself, I lived on the outskirts of the Lammas Tir y Gafel eco village for 2 years and was part of the wider community and still have very close ties with it. My personal concept of an eco village is when a group of people choose to live a low impact lifestyle, living and working alongside nature.
I grew up in Canada and moved to the UK in 2001. In Canada, the three ‘R’s were drilled into us from an early age, reduce, reuse, recycle. In Toronto, there were recycling bins next to garbage bins. When I moved to the UK, I felt a bit bewildered, things seemed perhaps a bit behind here in that respect. So I don’t know if I was so much passionate about environmental issues growing up as much as just taking it for granted as the norm.
Living next to the eco village for two years definitely increased my interest in sustainable living. In 2014 I was commissioned by FotoDocument and Photoworks to do a project about ’Sustainable Materials’ in Brighton. I remember saying to my boyfriend one evening before the commission began “You know how I am now? I think it’s about to get worse.” Meaning for him of course. I learnt so much during that commission, it really opened my eyes and I met so many inspiring people, including the artist duo Dirty Beach who collect washed up waste from the beach and rebrand it to make people question their relationship with waste and plastic.
I think I often use my camera as a way to meet people or a way to spend time with people when I might feel awkward doing so otherwise. It look time, but I got over the feeling I had that I was the odd one out and I now feel such a sense of belonging when I’m there and also when I’m not, as I’m regularly in contact with people from there.
I’m a bit of an odd one, I am both extremely sociable and also shy and living next to the eco village was a big learning curve for me. In my previous life, if I’d come home and found people in my home it would probably have freaked me out but coming home to my static caravan and finding a few pals in there using the internet, my shower or getting my fire going was actually really lovely.
How do members of the community interact with one another? how is their way of engagement geared towards the creation of a sense of community? What components make this community function, do volunteers outside of the immediate community get involved in the process?
Just like any group of people or community, most of the people get on with most of the people most of the time. Some of the people don't get on with some of the people any of the time.
There are many community events, often taking place at the community hub building which was built predominantly by volunteers in 2011. Social evenings, Halloween celebrations, workshops and even funeral wakes have taken place there.
One way it works is that people live independently from one another but there is also a need to work together for shared resources, such as the hydroelectricity. Again, I reached out to Leander about this and he said "It's a collection of individual households. We are tied to each other more than mainstream households because we share resources e.g. electricity, trackways, water etc. but that's kind of it. The key is to give each other as much space as possible."
Volunteers generally come in the summer and work with one plot on buildings and land based work. Many of the people that make up the outside community first visited as volunteers.
In your takeover you talk about how the approach of a street photographer walking up to their subject for a photographic inquire, is an approach you prefer not to take. What does your approach look like? How does your approach link to your own characteristics? In what ways do you push yourself outside of your comfort zone?
I like slow photography. I like observing and spending time with people, hearing their stories and creating trust both ways. For personal projects I use medium format film which naturally helps me to slow down and be more considered. I can be shy when I first meet people and I like taking the time to create a connection with people before I bring my camera out and enjoy making the experience feel collaborative.
How does the community embrace modern day technology? In what ways are their homes working with the land? How does the balance between the modern world and natural world come in to play?
My experience when I lived there was different from the people living in the eco village itself. I lived in a rented static caravan that had mains electricity, I had the internet, a TV and lighting (hence why I often had visitors). So I reached out to Leander Wolstenholme, a resident of the eco village for his response to this question. This was his response:
"One of the main limitations in terms of embracing modern technology is the lack of, or low quantity, of electricity we have available. We have a communal hydro-electric scheme and each household has their own array of solar panels and associated batteries. But even with those two things working (which they don't always) we don't have the quantity of electricity available that main stream households do. e.g. we would never be able run a standard 3.5kw electric kettle. Most households have washing machines (I think) but there are times of year they can't be used. When that happens we tend to use the launderette.In terms of internet, laptops, mobile phones, radios and that sort of thing. Those gadgets don't use a lot of electricity so they're all completely possible and lots of people/most people/everyone uses them to various extents. It's really up to each household what they use and how much they use. To be honest I don't really know what other households do. I only know what we do and we completely embrace the internet and all that it offers.Everyone has cars...you have to. We live in the middle of nowhere. So everyone embraces that form of modern technology. The shame of it is that we don't have enough electricity to be able to charge up electric cars from home.We all have a chunk of land. Everyone therefore has the opportunity to grow stuff and to keep animals etc. Again I don't really know what other people do or how successful they are. We're doing ok with vegetables this year but we don't have any animals at the moment.”In terms of The balance between the modern world and the natural world: "I think everyone just does their best to do what they think is the right way forward."
Can you tell us about applying for the grant you received from the Arts Council of Wales. Maybe take us through the structure as a sort of guidance to photographers searching for tips on how to receive funding for their projects
After a year or so of living next to the eco village and taking the occasional photo I decided that I wanted to turn it into a real project and for that I would need help with the funding. I was nervous about applying for an Arts Council grant because everyone kept telling me how hard it was to get funding and that I probably wouldn’t get funding as it’s so competitive. Perhaps that made me more determined and I went ahead with the application, working on it for 8 months in my static caravan with my dodgy internet signal.
My grant application was with The Arts Council of Wales and I found the process both daunting and hugely helpful. Daunting as it is quite a lengthy and compressive application and then in turn greatly helpful as it helped to clarify my ideas and get my head around how to financially budget a project. And I no longer think of my self as being in competition with anyone else, I just do my thing.
Some parts of the funding process have been revised since I did my application but when I did it the main sections you need to write about were:
- Artistic Quality
- Planning and Monitoring
- Public Benefit
- Management
- Budget
By the time I sent my application in I had a much clearer idea of what I wanted the project to be and how to set about it so I think it’s a worthwhile process to go through do even if you don’t get the funding. I was lucky and those 8 months paid off with receiving the full amount of the grant I asked for. I’m pretty sure I ordered several boxes of medium format film straight away.
You raise a great point about no longer thinking of yourself as being in competition with anyone else, can you dive deeper into the importance of this. Are there any steps you took to achieve this that you would recommend to others who feel this way? I know a lot of people feel the competition of life and would prefer to release that, so it would be great to talk about.
Getting out of the mindset that photography is a competitive field and therefore I am in competition with everyone took a long time and a lot of work. I went through a long period of not being able to get out of that mindset and it really damaged my self worth and also my ability to relax behind the camera and trust my instincts.
I remember a time when I was living next to the eco village and another photographer came to take photos. This wasn’t an overly rare event but it irked me every time. I’m embarrassed to admit this now but I remember saying to one of the members of the eco village “Can’t you just tell them not to come?”. He smiled sweetly at me and explained that that wouldn’t be fair and that they got so many requests from photographers to visit.
For me I think that idea of competition stemmed from jealously and insecurity. I must give credit to Heather Birnie for helping me get over this jealousy. As a photography student at the time (this was several years ago) she came to take photos of one of the families at Lammas. I was later shown a book she’d made of this work and it was beautiful. And it killed me. Some months later we ran into each other and she said how she’d looked at my work and that it was wonderful. I told her that hers too was wonderful and that I kind of hated her for it. And strangely enough, this was the point when we became friends. I’m not sure how she did it but she’s a wise one and somehow the jealously I felt towards other photographers slowly faded away. Heather is now working as a photographer in Wales and her talent blows me away but that jealously is replaced by feeling so happy for all her successes.
I think another thing that can help change a competitive mindset is finding your photo community. From attending photography festivals such as The Northern Eye in North Wales, I’ve met a great many likeminded people. As I’m writing this, we are almost 3 months into the Corona virus lockdown and I’ve been amazed at how photographers have adapted and found a way cultivate a photography community. Six by Six in Liverpool, who put on my most recent exhibition, have been hosting fortnightly Zoom interviews and Desert Island Pics sessions. Ffoton in Wales has been doing interviews which are published on YouTube, with a text chat running alongside it so you can interact with other people watching. I feel all these things create a sense of community and are a great reminder that we’re not in this alone.
To keep up to date with Amanda’s latest work follow along here:
Website: http://www.amandajaxn.co.uk/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandajaxnphoto/