Jacob Cartwright & Nick Jordan
Larksong | 2023

For the British Textile Biennial 2023, collaborative artists Nick Jordan and Jacob Cartwright present Larksong, a new film and installation in Goodshaw Chapel, a nonconformist Baptist chapel established by textile workers and farm labourers in 1760 and now owned by English Heritage.

The Larksong film is an exploratory documentary that journeys through the landscape on the edge of Pennine Moors in Northern England. With the chapel as a central motif, the film captures a distinctive history and topography, laced with the imprints of the traditional textile workers, mills and industries that shaped the environment.

The film’s narrative is framed by a poem, written and read by Emily Oldfield from the perspective of a chapel pew. Connecting to an emotional, tactile sense of memory, the poem weaves together social, industrial and ecological themes; ruminating upon the changing landscape, social mores and working practices that have been witnessed over time.

The musical score to Larksong has been created by musicians and artists David Chatton Barker, Mary Stark, Sam McLoughlin and Bridget Hayden. In addition to traditional instruments, such as harmonium and recorder, many of the sounds are derived from adapted spinning wheels, hand looms and drop spindles. The film also features their visual projections, created from foraged plants, gathered raw wool, stitched 16mm film and woven textiles. Larksong also features songs they have composed for the film, inspired by 18th century manuscripts from the Larks of Dean choir, and with lyrics from gravestone inscriptions found in the chapel’s burial grounds.

A film by Nick Jordan & Jacob Cartwright
Soundtrack & chapel projections: David Chatton Barker, Mary Stark, Sam McLoughlin, Bridget Hayden
Poetry: Emily Oldfield
Editor: Nick Jordan
Local historian: Stephen Oldfield
Natural dye advisor: Helen Armstrong (Softly Earth)
Screen print technician: Kiran Lee
Larks of Dean collection: The Whitaker Museum

Upstairs in the chapel, Cartwright and Jordan present a new series of printed calico fabrics, hung from the coat hooks that line the chapel’s walls. Printed in woad, which was historically used to give ‘slave cloth’ its distinctive hue of indigo blue, the images are all local wild plants with historic ties to textiles production, including fibrous plants such as nettle and flax, and those traditionally used in natural hand dyes, such as hawthorn, Saint John’s wort and weld.

The printed images are sourced from historic manuscripts: Botanologia: The English Herbal, or history of plants, William Salmon, 1710; Orbis Pictus, Johann Amos Comenius,1658:

Limited edition publication available, designed by the artists and featuring Emily Oldfield’s poem.
Order here

Soundtrack available on vinyl and digital download at Folklore Tapes