Started January 2010 [by Jack Thurgar]

This is a scrapbook dedicated to the study of London's weeds and the wild places where they grow. Wildcornerz also looks at the languages, cultures and mythologies that develop in these cracks.


What is a Wildcorner?

A Wildcorner is a term referring to a piece of land that has been left to grow wild in a man made landscape. To be a true Wildcorner, the land has to be restricted from public access. Many are hidden from public view altogether. A common type of wildcorner is referred to by govements and local authorities as a 'brownfield site'.

Wildcorners and corridors* are dotted all over the capital and vary in content, depending on their location and history. In this blog we focus particularly on the Wildcorners of south east London.

* Wildcorridors are networks of pathways that run through the city and facilitate the propagation and growth of weeds. Many are restricted from public access such as railway embankments and urban rivers. In the suburbs, footpaths such as the Green Chain connect public green areas by a network of alleyways and passages that skirt between houses and private land. It could be argued that these are also wild corridors.



Urban and Suburban Weeds

By the term 'weeds' we are of course referring to the cities wild plants and flowers. But their are also two other weeds that grow in the city.

'Graf' like its botanical relation, has many families and strains. Both of these weeds can often be found together, sharing many qualities including their adaptive nature and unregulated status. Both in many cases, originally entered and populated the city using the railway network.

Another 'weed' that historically flourishes in London is invisible and uses the tops of tower blocks to propagate. Pirate radio like its weed relatives, grows away from the public eye and is constantly adapting to exploit these same gaps across the cities FM radio spectrum, fighting and flourishing in-between the commercial stations.

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Tuesday, 11 October 2011

'The Fire Mix' [six sacred weeds]


This is phone footage, supplied by a member of the public. It is of one of my six small shadow rituals, performed live using each one of the six sacred weeds that make up the 'Fire Mix'.
This was inspired by the footage i filmed of Solomon Wild, believed to be performing an ancient version of this ritual at dawn on the Summer Solstice earlier this year [though this ritual was usually performed at dusk on midsummers eve.]
It was believed that the weeds were 'familiars' / spirits of the crops and by burning them, the smoke would cauterise pestilence and 'noisome influences' from the fertile land.
Also there was the belief of 'Sympathetic magic' which at its core, is the idea of analogy, all things in the universe connected by influences, suggested by their superficial appearance. The heat and the light created by theses bonfires was to aid the sun at the exact moment in the year it begins to wane.
The six weeds were believed to be chosen for their resemblance in some way to the sun and stars. For this series of shadow rituals, they were all tracked down and gathered from various wild cornerz of the capitol.
They are as follows:
Ragwort, Corn Marigold, Corn Poppy, Plantain, Vervain and finally the most magic of all in the mix; St. Johns Wort.
The leaves and flowers are cut off each weed and arranged to form a magic circle.

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