(The content of this project contains some references to sexual violence.)
Bleeding Yew is a multimedia research project exploring the yew tree species’ (Taxus baccata's) unique regenerative abilities. I employ anthropomorphic metaphors to consider yew agents of change in reference to healing from both personal and environmental trauma.
This part of the project combines landscape, still life, and land art medium format photography. Three locations across the UK are featured: Roundhay Park (Leeds), Morvern and Oban (Scottish Highlands) and Kingley Vale (South Downs).
The first three works were made in Leeds while experiencing personal upheavals, and considering local histories of power abuses. I brewed a deep red paint by slicing and straining beetroot and applying it to patches on woodland trees. I documented this intervention with 120mm photography.
Painted Bleeding Tree. Strained Vegetable Beetroot Paint Applied to Torn Patch on Woodland Tree. (Roundhay Park, Leeds, England). 120mm film.
‘The body hurries to heal itself, even as it’s dying.’ (The Red Parts, Maggie Nelson)
Painted Bleeding Tree. Strained Vegetable Beetroot Paint Applied to Bracket Fungi on Woodland Tree. (Gledhow Valley Woods, Leeds, England). 120mm film.
Painted Bleeding Tree. Strained Vegetable Beetroot Paint Applied to Removed 'Limbs' (Branches) on Woodland Tree. (Gledhow Valley Woods, Leeds, England). 120mm film.
The project took as its starting point the purportedly neutral name of the investigation into Jimmy Savile’s sexual abuse crimes: Operation Yewtree. Savile, one of the most recognisable television hosts in the UK, was responsible for 450 sex offences (328 committed against children).
Popular national institutions became implicated in preserving a predatory media culture, helping Savile to hide in plain sight. Even King Charles sought advice on public speaking from Savile.
Operation Yewtree was launched in October 2012, the same year I graduated from a high school located in close vicinity of his flat in Leeds. In between, on ‘Soldiers’ Field’, were also the sites of where several Peter Sutcliffe (known as the Yorkshire Ripper) attacks took place in the 1970s.
Paint Preparation - Sliced Beetroot in the Kitchen on the Croft, Rhemore (Morvern, Scotland). 120mm film.
‘Red is a position in the middle.’ (Seated Figure with Red Angle - Anne Carson)
View from the Kitchen on the Croft, Rhemore, over the Isle of Mull. (Morvern, Scotland). 120mm film.
Paint Preparation - Sliced Beetroot in the Kitchen on the Croft, Rhemore (Morvern, Scotland). 120mm film.
Bleeding Yew defies nonchalant violence through symbolically re-claiming space in the land. In November 2021, journeying on public transport from London to the Scottish Highlands, I broadened my arboreal knowledge while thinking about the hypothetical dangers of travelling alone.
During a weekend on Morvern with Woodland Trust foresters, five of us explored the land around their ‘Croft’ (a unique farmland ownership system).
Neighbouring timber plantations dominating the wider Highland landscape became apparent to contrast with the land across the Croft: ancient habitat-forming woodland ecosystems rewild and increase carbon stores, as Highland cows also help to do.
View Across Dunollie Castle and the Highlands. (Oban, Scotland). 120mm film.
‘The roots work / to disengage themselves from the cracks’ (The Trees, Collected Poems, Adrienne Rich)
Roots Coated with Beetroot Paint. (Oban, Scotland). 120mm film.
Self Portrait with Timber Plantations in Distance. (Morvern, Scotland). 120mm film.
Yew trees emerge from this journey and my archival investigations as figures of wisdom and warning. Yew are negotiators of change: they grow to be thousands of years old and are commonly associated with death, purgatory, and re-generation, and are often found near religious sites of worship. The yew tree is not a neutral symbol.
Bio-electric studies have shown Taxus employs root systems with the highest vitality among trees, investing heavily in them as seedlings, making yew extremely adaptive (Yew: A History, Fred Hageneder).
Extended branches of the tree can root new trunks when they touch the ground. These rhizomatic, expansive growths have formed ancient groves like at Kingley Vale. In some trees here, patches of bark seep deep ruddy and mauve sap.
An Elder Tree in Ancient Yew Grove. (Kingley Vale, South Downs, England). 120mm film.
‘Slips of yew, silvered in the moons eclipse.’ (Macbeth, Shakespeare)
Extended Boughs in Ancient Yew Grove. (Kingley Vale, South Downs, England). 120mm film.
Natural Bleeding Trunk and Rhizomatic Root Growth in Ancient Yew Grove. (Kingley Vale, South Downs, England). 120mm film.
Some species of fungus, such as the sulphur bracket (commonly known as chicken of the woods), can break down the insides of the trunk’s heartwood. Yew thus becomes hollow with age, much like the slow rotting of the old establishment’s core.
The tree re-cycles decaying matter into re-territorialised growths, like hope we have for re-thinking destructive features of contemporary culture.
These processes, while disintegrating internal systems, can, over time, strengthen whole structures against breakages from wind - we need to be able to sway, growing flexibly and resiliently like yew.
Highland Cows on Rhemore. (Morvern, Scotland). 120mm film.
‘What can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gesture of trees.’ (The Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin)
Highland Cows on Rhemore. (Morvern, Scotland). 120mm film.
The Isle of Mull from Rhemore. (Morvern, Scotland). 120mm film.
The following screen captures are from a video showing the beetroot preparation process to make a deep red vegetable paint. This batch was applied to the roots of a tree near Oban in the Scottish Highlands.
November 2021.
1080p. 6 minutes 28 seconds.
Click here to view the full film on Vimeo.
Screen Captures from Video: Beetroot Paint Preparation (Slicing, Brewing, Straining)
If you, or anyone you know, has been or is affected by sexual abuse, these organisations provide information about where you can find further support:
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2023, Room VI Curated by Clare Woods
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2023, Room VI Curated by Clare Woods