{"version":"1.0","provider_name":"RENATURED","provider_url":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog","author_name":"Marina","author_url":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog\/blog\/author\/admin\/","title":"Allenheads - Land inside out","html":"Things of course are nothing like what they appear. Land like any other time-based and event-based instance needs to be decoded or requires literacy to understand its stories.\r\n\r\nLast week I was generously welcomed to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.acart.org.uk\/about%20us.html\" target=\"_blank\">Allenheads Contemporary Arts <\/a>by founders &amp; artist producers\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alansmith.org.uk\/alansmithprojectarchive.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Alan Smith<\/a> and Helen Ratcliffe, and by Hannah Marsden, curator  of their recent show <a href=\"http:\/\/exploringnostalgia.wordpress.com\/events-2\/the-allenheads-experience\/\" target=\"_blank\">Exploring Nostalgia<\/a> (see earlier post on <a href=\"http:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog\/\/?p=841\" target=\"_blank\">dead moles in dresses).<\/a> Alan gave me an intense tour of the land, 2 hours of condensed experiential learning by car and foot - jumping up and down on the watershed land (a spongy trampoline), looking at charming, flower-strewn brooks (actually garbage middens from 19th c lead miners), and learning to read the vertical scars on the hills - channels made by huntsmen to drain the highland moors for better pheasant and grouse hunting conditions. Underground, a white-lime painted maze of tunnels that takes you forward in time as you go further in (newest last); this work of burrowing has, like worms, left giant-sized man-castings on the surface which look like naturally\u00a0 picturesque bumps and hillocks.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"422\" caption=\"Sheep up on the high moors, Allenheads\"]<img src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3593\/3635628904_b8960a50de.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"Sheep up on the high moor\" width=\"422\" height=\"281\" \/>[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"421\" caption=\"Allenheads, old house\/smelter remains\"]<img src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3613\/3635645110_269a23e7f7.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"Allenheads, old house remains\" width=\"421\" height=\"280\" \/>[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"421\" caption=\"Stream at bend of\u00a0 the original cart road into Allenheads\"]<img src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3638\/3634861385_2c3390d89f.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"Allenheads - near the original cart road into Allenheads\" width=\"421\" height=\"280\" \/>[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"421\" caption=\"Alan Smith\"]<img src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2433\/3634855535_d20249886a.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"Alan Smith\" width=\"421\" height=\"280\" \/>[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"422\" caption=\"Allenheads Contemporary Art\u00a0 family members Kaiser and Messerschmidt\"]<img src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3410\/3634858137_9a00e377a0.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"Allenheads Contemporary Art Center family members Kaiser and Messerschmidt\" width=\"422\" height=\"281\" \/>[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"419\" caption=\"Allenheads community member\"]<img src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2459\/3634850811_01051b9923.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"Allenheads community member\" width=\"419\" height=\"279\" \/>[\/caption]\r\n\r\nI thought there was an odd and distant kinship to New York\/Staten Island's<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fresh_Kills_Landfill\" target=\"_blank\"> Fresh Kills<\/a> Landfill, of a long term land shape that's formed from the inside out, entirely by man (see<a title=\"Permanent Link: Why Call Them Landfills? They are dumps, eyesores, middens and disgraces.\" rel=\"bookmark\" href=\"http:\/\/censys.org\/blog\/?p=824\"> \"Why Call Them Landfills? They are dumps, eyesores, middens and disgraces.\"<\/a>)\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1327\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"250\" caption=\"Fresh Kills - Then and Now (over the years)\"]<img class=\"size-full wp-image-1327\" title=\"09-494-freshkills2\" src=\"http:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/09-494-freshkills2.jpg\" alt=\"Fresh Kills - Then and Now (over the years)\" width=\"250\" height=\"480\" \/>[\/caption]","type":"rich"}