This episode of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast with David John Scarborough presents a new work, Dead Wood Burning – a musical tapestry grounded in the idea of Ubi Sunt – a rhetorical question asking where are those that have gone before us.
Deftly weaving together samples of music from Pete Seeger’s anti-war song ‘Where have all the flowers gone?’ to moments of David’s own music – this is a poetic exploration of ecological breakdown, the long lasting effects of folk tradition, and personal experiences of community, family, and fatherhood.
The episode concludes with an insightful discussion with the artist.
With thanks to Dean Howard and Tilly Robinson.
Backing vocals by Claire Lleshi
Electric and bass guitar by Isaac Robinson
Vocal dubbing by Tayler Fisher
Reading by Joshua Jones
Samples from:
‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone’ by Pete Seeger
‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone’ performed by Sybarite5
‘Slumber My Darling’ by Stephen C. Foster, performed a Charnwood Community Choir
Words from The Wanderer, The Lord of the Rings, Corita Kent, David G. Haskell and Robert Macfarlane
A short transcript of the episode is available here.
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The accompanying visual is a video response to the episode, by artist Sapphire Goss.
David John Scarborough is a British-Australian artist, curator and a co-founder of Modern Painters, New Decorators. He creates projects to think through his relationships with materials and places by considering personal history or public heritage. He makes exhibitions, books, videos and music.
Sapphire Goss is a multimedia artist who uses obsolete technologies to explore experimental materiality and hybrid collaborative forms to make work that grows, decays and lives beyond the screen. Sapphire responds to each podcast episode with a new video.
Our curators for the Love + Light season of the Fermynwoods Podcast are Marie-Chantal Hamrock and Astrid Björklund. Marie and Astrid have previously collaborated as SUBTERRA for Aerial Community Radio in Aberdeen, which “navigates speculative narratives of the chthonic (of relating to or inhabiting the underworld) through text, poetry, soundscapes and music.”