A two-week residency in mid-Norfolk in March 2025. Time to reflect, identify new directions, and develop new work. I was lucky to be in residence during a settled spell of weather; chilly and bright for the most part. The resident cockerel ensured some early starts, getting me up and about as the sun rose.

I mostly stayed close to base, walking being my main mode of transport to explore the locality and have some active thinking time. I continued with my work around signage in the landscape, collecting examples as I walked or cycled. Ignoring place / property names and advertising, most signage found in the landscape hereabouts is instructional. I realised that in compiling the text of these signs I was collating a sort of 'landscape: instructions for use'. In addition to the PKO sign paintings I feel that this content has a number of other directions it can be taken in.

I also continued to think about the county's geology, with flint, gravel and sand being the main subjects here (although I did come across an glacial erratic which I wasn't aware of). Using rubbings of flint walls or arrangements of small flints as found notations for sound works.

Walking and spending time in the Top Shed gardens I also gathered a list of bird species seen (and heard). Arriving at 52 species by the time I had to leave. I started to think about the naming of birds, their descriptions and how this information could be arranged … using this information as another form of found text. Maybe this source could interrupt the text of the signage or maybe it exists in its own category, but interrupting its own rational ordering.

A couple of intrusions entered the rural idyll, one from above and one from below (sort of). Military aircraft and more specifically helicopter training is low and loud at times in this part of the county. I used flight tracking websites to follow the convolutions of these aircraft and also found fascination in their code names. The intrusion from 'below' was the earthworks and activity connected with the distribution of power across North Norfolk from the massive new offshore wind farms. Bristling with signage at each point it crossed a public right of way, the route of the supply wends its way from the coast near Happisburgh to a location west of Dereham.

I captured my residency in the work shown here, Fading Memories, recording a daily observation and gathering them on a board using a Movitex sign set. Using the limited letters of the set, my daily memories faded as I moved through the residency, words becoming reduced to letter stutters. I intend to work more with similar rules and limitations which restrict and alter text.