JEREMY TAYLOR
Jeremy has lived in both West and East Suffolk all of his life. For over thirty years he has endeavoured to understand and explore his relationship with the surrounding ritual landscapes through the lens of our ancestors. With a degree in social sciences, he is motivated to better understand his relationship with the natural world, and more importantly those around him.
Like many, he has been drawn to the obvious and the bold, the pyramids and the grand megalithic temples have been a draw and he has travelled extensively to connect with the ‘Genius Loci’, the spirit of place, at the sacred sites in Egypt, Mexico, Malta, Greece and Japan.
Focusing his attentions on the landscape under his feet in Suffolk, he revels in painstaking ‘forensic’ research, an example of this is when Jeremy came across a map in the records office dated 1629 of an ancient woodland. He believes this helped him identify what might be the only location in the whole of Suffolk where all three ancestral track ways converge; the Icknield Way, the Peddars Way and the Puddingstone Track, all dating from 6,500 B.C. to the time of the Romans.
Jeremy’s sole aim is always trying to understand and illuminate arcane connections around him, hoping to reveal and make sense of the ‘hidden’, almost dormant sketches beneath the landscapes canvas, giving such liminal locations that he has a passion for a context, a voice.
He does not shy away from sticking his head above the parapet, developing an idea and an inner understanding with something ‘other’ requires occasional paradigm shifts and the willingness to sometimes abandon academic consensus. That said, his ideas have caught the imagination of numerous Professors across globe with whom he is in regular contact and whom continue to ‘fuel’ his research. He has lectured extensively across the country as well being asked to lead various field trips, treading where others ‘may not know why’.
MARK OFFORD
Mark lives on the Shotley Peninsula and struggles to trace his family gene pool wider than the county bounds. His background is in the graphic arts and he has collaborated with writer Justin Hopper and designer Stefan Musgrove on ‘I Made Some Low Inquiries’, walked and talked with psychogeographer Phil Smith, played with folk collective The Owl Service, and presented ‘Strand’ – a guided silent group walk, connecting the landscape and the broken brain for SPILL Festival.
Mark is developing a series of ritual walking works under the guise of ‘The Rough Band’, a collaboration with artist and curator Robert Pacitti. The Rough Band’s work invites active participation, encouraging new community rituals, from small group walks to mass participation events such as ‘The Pyre Parade’.
Mark has shared Jeremy’s interest in the hidden nature of Suffolk’s ancient landscape for nearly three decades and is looking forward to collaborating on a series of Arcane Landscape walking projects in the very near future.
MARK TAYLOR
Mark is an author and researcher. His primary research interests are Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Iron Age Scandinavian studies, especially literature, art and culture; religion and belief; ritual and magical practice; and northern pre-Christian worldviews. He also pursues general interests in folklore, mythology, mythopoeia and archeoastronomy. He is author of a number of books and articles. In his free time Mark enjoys hiking, camping and challenging the status quo.
GRIFF CHAMBERLAIN
Griff started out as a graduate in Applied Physics and as such had a firm grounding in physical sciences and application of experimental procedure. He has since moved into the world of documentation having contributed method and means to simplify and automate the production and publication of documentation written to strict specification for a wide range of industries including military, nuclear and legislative.
As a keen walker and hiker, the rural landscape has always offered him a place of peace and thought where contemplation has produced many answers to both personal and professional issues as well as offering questions as to the features that he has encountered. In 2009 Griff started a blog to record his walking exploits that has also grown into an area to present the results of research and investigation into the history and folklore of the landscapes he has encountered. Having lived in the Suffolk Coastal area for the past 20 years, this area has provided Griff with a rich source for both history and folklore which he has attempted to research and investigate from a wide variety of historic documents and personal conversations with local folk.