2020-2022
Commissioned in collaboration with University of Exeter Arts & Culture, Here’s to Thee was a project by internationally-renowned artist Simon Pope. Collaborating with a team of creative practitioners and academics, Pope’s fascinating project explores the complex ecology and cultures of cider-making.
Photographer Robert Darch and filmmaker Bevis Bowden captured the second Halstow wassail in January 2022. Their images and film show the ancient rituals carried out to ensure a good harvest of apples in the coming year. This includes the performance of a new wassail song written by Jim Causley and performed by shanty singing group Mariners Away.
Simon Pope describes the Here’s to Thee commission as a ‘multi-disciplinary and participatory art project that experiments with our relationships with the many non-humans – especially the microbial life – involved in cider-making, and explores the ways in which our social worlds are formed in relation to them.’
Find out more: Simon Pope: Here’s to Thee display – RAMM (rammuseum.org.uk)
