(un)making barbed wire

In my recently defended dissertation work, I made maps that responded to the division of Land under colonial regimes through the ‘immaculate grid,’ the division of Land for private ownership. 

One of my examiners mentioned in passing the barbed wire in my writing, noting that barbed wire is the physical manifestation of settler-colonial policy on the land. He asked, “Why not work with that materially?” It was a really open-ended question, but then when I returned to the farm, I saw how even in this very intentional place, barbed wire had been used – probably 70 years ago – and left to scar the land, the trees, and disrupt movement and relations with other animals.

So, I decided to unmake this barbed wire. I have been pulling out as much of it as I can over the past few months. It has been overtaken by woods that the biodynamic farm’s caretakers have allowed to re-establish on parts of the property, creating habitat corridors. Last week I filmed a performance on the land. This ritualistic labour involved dragging bundles of wire to a central site, feeding the wire into a glass demijohn on the land, and then covering it in water and vinegar. Eventually, the wire will break down and become a productive new material - ink. I am excited by the possibility of using this rust ink to write new stories of this land and its soils, ones that aren’t governed by domination and extraction but rather by reciprocity and care. I am setting up a long-term stop-motion camera at the site to capture the interactions with the bottle. Eventually, I will bring it indoors, and the bottle and documentary footage will become an installation for the 2025 exhibition ReMediating Soils at the Woodstock Art Gallery.