Eburākon: A Place of Yew Trees
Eburākon: A Place of Yew Trees
A journey through deep space-time by glass artist Max Jacquard and audio-visual artist Philip Clemo. This collaborative work draws on castings in red-amber glass of fragments of ancient wood discovered inside the trunk of a 2,400-year-old yew tree, growing in a graveyard in Kent, England. With hollow interiors gilded in white gold, these forms become sculptural vessels and place-markers within a primal landscape. The accompanying film and soundscape move inside and around the hollow trunk, tracing the plant structures of an ancient organism - one that is both decaying and regenerating, embodying a deep continuity of life.
At a time when the impact of human life on our planet becomes more profound, this project asks us to reflect on our own impermanence, how we honour this relationship and what of us remains.
I became fascinated by the story of the Ulcombe Yew after I had been doing some work taking an impression from it’s gorgeous burr texture high up in the trunk. As I jumped down from my concealed hiding place I startled a man who was visiting the grave of his son. After I explained what I was doing we got to chatting and the man told me that the ancient yews of Ulcombe had a special significance for both him and his wife and that every time they came to visit his wife would place a hand on the trunk and raise a prayer for their lost son. I wondered how many people through history had been touched by this tree during its 3000 year lifespan.
The more I researched the more I realised that there was an incredible history linking ancient Yews with spiritual belief. In fact it could be said that the tree and its younger companions were the basis for locating the Church at this site and represented therefore a kind of “locus” of this place that I loved and where I had spent many years working. I decided it was fitting that I should make something to honour the tree and its links to human spirituality. Talking with my friend Phil Clemo I realised that we could further add to this story using sound and moving image. The further exploration of the trees secrets is what we are busy with right now.
- Max Jacquard
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Sacred Heart
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Fossil
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Casket
Video Still, Philip Clemo
I have felt a deep affinity with trees since childhood, when I would wander through the forests of Aberdeenshire in northern Scotland. So when Max invited me to collaborate on Eburakon, he was pushing at an open door.
We visited the ancient yews of Ulcombe and clambered inside the hollow trunk of one of them. The sound was hushed and the air carried the smell of mulch. There was decay everywhere, but also vibrant regeneration and an abundance of insect life. Using contact microphones and ambisonic 360-degree recording, I captured a sonic footprint of the tree: its creaks and groans, the scuttles of hidden life, and the surrounding birdsong.
I filmed the interior in extreme close-up, and traced the shifts of light as they passed through dense foliage and across the tree’s varied terrains.
These audio-visual representations work in dialogue with Max’s extraordinary sculptures, cast from fragments of the ancient trunk.
- Philip Clemo
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Max Jacquard is known as an explorer and innovator working with a range of glass forming techniques. In a career of over thirty years his unique methods have always been developed in response and as a stimulus to ideas of a more poetic nature. His work encompasses cast glass in vessel form, sculpture and installation and his work can be seen in museums such as the V&A, London and Glassmuseum-Lette in Coesfeld and the Museum of Glass in Shanghai.
Max’s latest project is a collaboration with film-maker and musician Phillip Clemo. It documents the life, death and rebirth processes of an ancient Yew tree growing in the churchyard next to Max’s studio. As well as film and sound these installed works feature a glass aesthetic that is subtle yet dynamic. The evidence of the making process is felt as well as seen in the unique material qualities that result.
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Philip Clemo is a UK-based artist working in music, sound design, film, and live performance. His acclaimed sonic landscapes blend improvisation, electronica, and orchestration, with his seventh album, Through the Wave of Blue, released in 2024.
Clemo’s work has been showcased at international film festivals, the V&A Museum, and Eden Project with his Dream Maps multi-media project fusing live music with hypnotic imagery. He uses cutting-edge technology to capture imagery on scales from petri-dish ‘galaxies’ to aerial landscapes. His Breath Project, supported by UK universities and industry leaders and featured in his TEDx & TED talks, explores our connection to the diverse environments we inhabit.
Current work includes Eburakon with glass-maker Max Jacquard, documenting the life, death and rebirth of an ancient English Yew tree, and From Silence Into Song with Shout at Cancer, honouring trees that survived Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombs and a choir of cancer survivors who learned to sing post-laryngectomy.
Photography unless otherwise noted Brent Darby https://www.brentdarby.com/
Video and sound from within and outside the tree Philip Clemo https://philipclemo.com/
Glass Max Jacquard