I went back to college Lake Reserve yesterday, for the first time since I confirmed which hide I’m going to be working in, to create my installation.

It was nice and quiet, with the odd family wandering about, so I had time to just sit quietly in the hide, to draw, write and see what was on the reserve.

I also wanted to really ‘breathe in’ the atmosphere of the hide. It is called Castle Hide because it was sponsored by Castle Cement, previously Tunnel Cement, the company that quarried the site from 1967. It was decommissioned as a quarry in 1991, and some faded photographs in the hide show what it was like in its quarrying days.

Back before the site’s industrial past it was arable land, the farm being owned by the Caldwell Monastery.

So it has a rich and interesting past, and that’s part of what I’m interested in. I don’t want to present it as some kind of untouched paradise, an isolated parcel on nature. I believe that we need to recognise how we are nature, and that any denial of that only worsens any nagative impact that we may have on our ecosystems. If we want to build more sustainable, happy and healthy futures, we need to recognise how we impact on and can work with, the systems that support us and all other life on earth. We cannot divide ourselves off in some way, although our language and culture may try.

I’m also interested in the fabric of the building. Its an honest building, of wood  screwed together, with perspex windows and viewing slots covered by pull down flaps. It has spiders living in it and some kind of mouse living and scratching in the roof. It has a patina from years of use that you can’t manufacture.

I guess what I want and need to do is to allow the hide, the site’s history, and the wealth of wildlife that makes the site its home (whether all year round or seasonally), to speak through me and my artwork.

I’m tempted to explore the lives that the migratory species have away from here, the Common Terns, The Sand Martins and the Warblers, and even some of the butterflies. Where do they come from? What do their other homes look like? What changes are happening there?

My installation will need to be be a kind of interpretation, a distillation of what makes College Lake special, in its history, its biodiversity and its links with other sites around the world, with specific reference to the view from this little wooden hide, perched on the bank, up above the water.