A Measure of Care

A Measure of Care charts expressions of love, care & grief across three moments in time. 

Centred round a ledger written in the 1800s from archives of The Harris Museum, Preston, we returned it to the house it was first written. We worked with local farmers, birders, residents, ornithologists, conservationists & historians asking them to reflect on the words. 

The author, John Weld was a Victorian landowner, antiquarian and amateur painter lived in Leagram Hall in the Forest of Bowland. In the Ledger, he introduces ‘a list of birds observed or taken in the neighbourhood of Leagram within a radius of 4 to 5 miles from the hall’. A detailed set of observations relating to 112 bird species over a fifty-year period from 1836 until his death.

In the exhibition the ledger is accompanied by an audio recording read by John Weld’s direct descendant, John Weld-Blundell. A two-screen film (35 mins) allows for reflections on the rapid decline of bird species from the people we worked with and a speculative future, a loan archivist cares for the skins of the now extinct bird species. Two corresponding maps, from 1880s & present day show the 5 mile radius.