About

My name is Jackie H Morris, I am a student researcher at Manchester Metropolitan University. This year long project is part of my PhD research investigating our relationship with rural place by working with its community using a participatory textile method.

In Walking the Commons I consider ‘walking’ as a way of stitching with the body as the needle, and the ground as the fabric. This community project is organised by myself with support from my supervisory team at the university and is self-funded. The themes of this project are the commons, enclosure of rural areas, utilising walking as a form of stitching with the body and capturing of any responses to the experience.

I am looking for volunteers from the local community to take part to be able to best understand our experiences in relation to the place of rural common land.  It is a time limited project, and participants are invited to take part for the whole project which will end with an exhibition in 2024.

We will investigate the publicly accessible common lands of Herefordshire. The method will be by walking/mobilising on one common land site of the participant’s choice combined with any existing historic records to be found at Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre (HARC).

The specific aims of this project are to answer the question ‘What is embodied (captured in person) when walking in common lands of rural place for example, what experiences are had, what thoughts, feelings, emotions, or ideas are elicited or formed through the walking practice, and how are they expressed either in participants documentation or any subsequent creation of an artwork/artefact.

I am very grateful to Rhys Griffiths and all his team at HARC who have generously allowed me to use a room on Saturdays for our research meetings and to have an exhibtion of project artistic outcomes there next year.

My email: jacqueline.morris@stu.mmu.ac.uk