Hello, my name is Rachel Eleanor-Brook, and I’m a multidisciplinary artist and community arts practitioner based in the North East. My practice is primarily textile and fibre-based, and I’m particularly interested in touch and texture and sensory experiences and the possibilities that come from intertwining found objects and organic ephemera into approaches of assemblage.
For the People’s Tree, I’m really interested in exploring the relationship between the organic materials of the landscape around Sycamore Gap and natural fibre and textile processes, empowering community engagement with natural materials such as seeds, sticks, twigs, branches, leaves and dried plant material, bringing these together with fibre through processes such as wrapping, binding, weaving and textile forms. This is something I explore in my own practice, experimenting with things like crochet, using seaweed instead of wool, or with fibre wrapping and binding and using willow and things like that to explore what we can do with fibre and texture, as well as natural dyeing processes and thinking about what happens when materials from the land are transformed through textile processes.
What particularly excites me about the People’s Tree is that the Sycamore Gap environment and natural material form carries its own history and connection to place, and I’m interested in creating opportunities for people to explore that material relationship for themselves, using making as a way of connecting with nature and memory and common ground and site specificity.
I have ten years’ experience as a community arts practitioner, working with a wide range of people across community, education, heritage, wellbeing, co-creation is at the centre of how I work. I’m interested in finding out what people can bring with them on new creative journeys, empowering space for experimentation and developing creative visions together rather than arriving at finished ideas about how something might look or feel.
I would bring a tactile, accessible and sensory approach to the project alongside my experience of working with diverse communities and facilitating collaborative creative activity. I’m particularly excited by the possibility of bringing my textile and fibre practice into conversation with the landscape around Hadrian’s Wall.
Rachel Eleanor Brook 