In February 2025 I undertook a week long residency with Claire Hind and Saba Zavarei at Kestle Barton in Cornwall. Titled Night Tone the residency built on Claire’s work with Jenny Hall, walking with women in the dark on the North Yorkshire Moors. Over the course of the week we walked during the day, and in the dark, exploring the landscape around the Helford river.
Gradually our focus pulled in to walking between the light and the dark, the particular states and times of day when twilight falls. We started in the light, and kept going as dark fell, allowing our eyes to adjust, feeling the shift as diurnal birds sang their goodnight songs, and nocturnal creatures began to wake. We stayed out into the night and watched the stars appear – Claire and Saba sharing their knowledge of the constellations – and sensing the hemispheric connections that the night sky conjures (we all find ourselves under these stars).
We concluded the week with a performance installation at Kestle Barton farmhouse; a tripartite event drawing together our individual interpretations and inspirations from the week’s walking.
Claire performed in the laundry room, telling stories of our walking between the light and dark in the light of projected images taken during the week, of her folding her body into rocks, folds and cracks in the natural landscape. The audience packed in, immersed in the warm space, as Claire moved in and out of the projected imagery, bringing the beach and the cliffs and the footpaths into the house.
Saba performing in the garden, with the audience watching from outside, lit only by light from within and the rising moon. On the grass she slowly laid out in white stones the form of a constellation while her voice spoke to us in the room, speaking of connection and disconnection from home. The performance closed with Saba moving towards the window, and singing an Iranian lullaby, before banging at the front door to be let in.
My work spread throughout the ground floor of the house, with texts constructed from materials foraged on our walks that reflected on night and darkness: dark falls, night rises, light fails. Bay, bracken, bramble fade grey. In the kitchen I welcomed people as they arrived, inviting them to share a word about the night, which I spelled out in bay leaves on the counter before scooping them up and adding them to a pot boiling on the stove.
We invited guests to stay for soup, and closed the evening by reading a new score for walking into the dark that we had written across the course of the week.
Clare Qualmann 