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Artist and writer Alinah Azadeh has recently been comissioned by Towner to work with sculptor Will Spankie on The Four Directions, four new benches sited at the compass points around the Warren Hill Dew Pond. Each seat has been inscribed with a text written by artist and writer Alinah Azadeh - entitled ‘To the North’, ‘To the South’, ‘To the East’ and ‘To the West’; the four reflective texts referencing the views from each of the benches. You can listen to a reading of these texts and view a transcript on The Four Directions web page.

Last year Towner commissioned another piece of writing by Alinah Azadeh, which imagines and describes what visiting Black Robin Farm might be like in the future. She wrote Up from paradise..., a short fiction from the point of view of a child. In her original draft – but not included in the final story – the characters stop and visit the dew pond on the way up to the farm. The following is an edited version of that original out-take.

When the wind was full and fierce up there, I would lean right back into my mother’s arms, taking in the downward sweep of the Downs towards the sea basin, realising just how far we had come. I loved the flashes of cream on the waves rippling back towards Eastbourne, and the pier glistening white and gold, stretching its fingertips towards France.  

Before we headed up to the Farm, we would divert slightly and stop at the dewpond at Warren Hill, to spend time with him. It was a beautiful spot they loved and used to visit long before I arrived in their lives, set in what we used to call The Realm of Forking Paths.  

The paths took you into chalk grassland, along the coastal ridge, to points where it felt like you could touch the clouds, en route to the marine headland around the Lighthouse, Seven Sisters Birling Gap.  

It was at the dewpond, from where you could see all of this, that she first taught me the four directions. Over time we developed a routine there together, using the wooden benches that suddenly appeared one day. Bench by bench, I would slowly trace the words carved into the wood with my fingertips, reciting them out loud to her, whilst she sat very still, listening, her back against the solid oak. 

I became a human compass, starting with To the North, ‘To air. To cloud drift, skylark, breezing wind ...’ I moved around to read To the East, To the South and then back around to her on To the West. She followed me all the way with her eyes, a lightly upturned smile on her face. The words were written in such a way that you could make them your own, which I did. Of course we aways thought of him as I read them out. Afterwards just sat hugging, listening to the wind or the rise of birdsong around us – Chiffchaffs, Skylarks, Stonechats; sometimes I would sing back, because it really cheered her up.   

Next I would take out one of the fossils from my pocket – a shepherd’s crown or a fairy loaf from the beach below – and place it near the rim of the pond. I used it to speak to him in my head, through the dewpond. I knew I could do it anywhere, anytime – but here it felt special. She gave me the idea since he had no grave and we had scattered his ashes in the sea not far from here. We knew we weren’t the only ones who came to remember people we loved, whether dead after a long illness like his, or just far away over a border, like some of our other family.  

You can reach a beloved with just a smile in the reflection of a pool like this or in the sky above it, she told me once. Sometimes she would start crying as we sat hugging, but she said it was healthy crying and a relief – and that the pool needed both our tears and smiles to bring it back to life again.  

After a few months, we realised that since these new benches had appeared, more people had come to care for the dewpond itself. New life had been seeded in the water; in Spring it was now thick with the early, lime green shoots of rushes, reeds and aquatic mosses. I Ioved the tickle of pondweed below the surface, like a huge moving fabric in so many shades of greens and purples. It’s a real community in there now, she said, all that new life, returning.  

 We always took biscuits and slabs of halva to snack on together, and if anyone else was sitting there alone, we offered them some, as if they had come to remember someone that could be hard, she said. We met and made friends there, including a lot of dogs, who loved the water, space, and air like we did. 

Just before we left the dewpond, we always took one more look out in the four directions together, to the panorama of sea, Downs and town. As we did this we shared one thing about him we had both really loved.  

Then we set off towards the Farm for the rest of the day, recharged and ready for a creative adventure together.    

Alinah Azadeh 

www.alinahazadeh.com 

© Alinah Azadeh