Was great to meet everyone involved with Jerwood Forest Open at the rather lovely Alice Holt Forest. The weather was on our side and perfect for a lovely walk mid meeting with the current #jof artists and previous winners Semi Conductor and to hear and see how their work was produced and get lots of advice from Jerwood Open team. It’s early days yet so I’ve not much to report here on my own radio inspired project, I know what I plan to do see previous post but my head is already spinning with so many technical avenues to enable that, luckily I don’t have to commit to my final plan and costings till September. It’s funny but as I started to dive into alternative power sources, new radio project ideas are already are seeding in my head which I ‘m goin to have to put on hold for the time being, however no avenue of exploration is time wasted. There is a lot to take into account so I am keen to crack on. Better pics from the day of people like the one above and more info on the project found at http://jerwoodopenforest.org/journal/ We also had great talk from Dan Harvey from Ackroyd & Harvey it was fascinating to hear about how his grass art wall ‘fly tower’ at National Theatre recycled water from the car park and saved them water bills throughout the building.
Going to the forest reminded me how important these public spaces are and that they remain in the public hands. The Public Forest Estate (PFE) as it is know accounts for only 18% of all English woodlands, covering just 9% of the nation – which is quick shocking and is one of the lowest percentages in Europe we were informed by Haley Skipper from the Forestry Commission. There are in excess of 1,000 publicly owned forests in England, covering abour 258,000 hectares so it will be hard to choose just one. I have so far narrowed it to three forests that I have visited in the past and am keen on working in but for now I’ll have to keep that to myself !
Magz Hall 
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