The journey of the Deep Time Storyteller has begun. Starting with my first virtual footsteps into the palaeoecology of Xiamen, my paternal grandfather’s place of birth.
Exploring the coastal areas around Xiamen, Amoy when my grandfather was born, encompasses the coastal on and off shore characteristics of the regions to the north and south of Xiamen. It is a seductive process, to peel away the temporal layers of urban and agricultural occupation to reveal the true skin of the land herself.
Many thanks to my creative partner in the journey, Prof. Simon Haberle, for drawing together articles from his Chinese colleagues. With their help I have waded through coastal mangroves, recognising some familiar plant and tree forms, and encountering new ones. I have been fascinated by the sediment cores from Daiyun Mountain Nature Reserve to the north, lured by the mysteries to be uncovered in the peat deposits from Leizhou Peninsula to the south. And fascinated to discover that as I go further back in time the place beneath my grandfather’s ancestors’ footprints was warmer, wetter, more sub-tropical than it is today.
I have also looked at some of the micro-photographic images from the Atlas of Quarternary Pollen and Spores in China, which is an overview of fossil pollens and spores from Quarternary sediments in China. As an artist these images are tantalizing! I feel like a kid standing in front of the lolly shop, mouth watering! Click on the link below for a taster!