VISITORS to Moors Valley Country Park near Ringwood can enjoy an unusual sound installation, Canopy, created for this year’s Inside Out Dorset festival, from 12th to 21st September, by Dorset-based artist Lorna Rees, of Gobbledegook Theatre,. It draws on contributions from a range of people including scientists, artists, folk musicians, arborists and Year 4 children from Malmesbury Park Primary School in Bournemouth.

The project is an exploration of our relationship with trees. Canopy will see 24 sonic seed pods suspended from trees on a trail at Moors Valley Country Park and Forest at Ashley Heath.

“The workshop at Malmesbury Park was wonderful, so inspiring,” says Lorna. “There’s this amazing hidden woodland there that we had an incredible time exploring. We had our listening hats on with the ears cut out and the responses from the children were so pure, so magical, completely untouched by the distractions we as adults fill our lives with. We spoke a lot about how we can be a good ancestor, and look after our trees for the future. We are custodians and one day we’ll pass that on to the next generation.

“We live in a very digital world, a very indoors world, so anything that gets us out into the open and into the realm of the physical is a good thing. I hope Canopy is part of that.”

Lorna’s work, which she tours nationally and internationally, is frequently inspired by the environment and climate emergency. “I first heard about this at the age of 11 – it was called the greenhouse effect in those days – and I’ve been campaigning about green issues ever since. I knew the answers then and they’ve not really changed, but we haven’t made anywhere near enough progress, so the hope is that the young people of today can meet that challenge.

“The reason I make work for the outdoors is that it is seen and experienced by people who might not buy a ticket or go to a theatre. It means I meet so many different people and have the most fantastic conversations with them about all kinds of things – that’s the strength of Inside Out Dorset.

Inside Out Dorset festival of outdoor arts will take place in various locations across the county from 12th to 21st September. All events are free.

Photograph by Jayne Jackson.