badges for brooke valley

Brooke Valley School is the local independent school close to fieldwork.  As the school year came to a close, Coral Nault, the principle teacher and some parents took the kids on a 'fieldtrip' to visit fieldwork.  It was of particular interest for the kids to visit Flower Lunn's work "Badges for Brooke Valley" as Flower also grew up in the area and attended Brooke Valley School when she was young.  The text on her 'pavillion' are like whispers of memories from the time she spent growing up here. 

The kids also enjoyed trapsing, or perhaps racing through the forest where Dan's Bewilderness is installed, checking out newly sprouted mushrooms, a wacky raven on suitcases, and strange, suspended, wood rails! 

We are delighted that we could host the school group and hope there will be more visits from kids/youth in the future!

Badges for Brooke Valley took shape this week when Flower Marie Lunn spent a few days custom fitting her banners to their poles and installing them and the pavillion with Adam's help (hooray for tall fellows!).  We lucked out with the weather and managed to get it up and running without getting too wet!

There are now three poles with flag banners atop them marking out the field, waving in the wind. 

One of the poles will also be the support for a badge pavilion, so to speak.   That is stage two. All stages will be up for the opening!

Alongside the events and passages that shape the life of a community are smaller, more individual events
in a life in the local landscape.  Badges for Brooke Valley celebrates the small moments of life in its woods
and fields, drawing upon memories of growing up in the area adjacent to the fieldwork site.

Skating over weeds frozen into ice, discovering secret patches of flowers in the forest, or going to the
outhouse at night – these passages were a big deal to me as a child, and form a unique kind of skill set,
overlooked beside more practical proficiencies and forgotten when I became an adult, now living in a city.
When I think back to my life here, I miss those subtle engagements that quietly strengthen the connection
to the land.

This is what Badges for Brooke Valley commemorates. Like scouts’ or guides’ merit badges,  the badge
marks experience of mastery, of adaptation to the situation at hand.  Unlike official merit badges, these
ones mark memories and skills unique to a person’s experience of growing up in the landscape.  Here  it is
the minor events, the childhood memories, the overlooked and idiosyncratic experiences of daily life in the
country, that are commemorated.

There will be an opening on Sunday June 20th, from 2 - 5pm.  All are welcome to come and take a badge, whether as souvenier, or memento in honour of shared experience.