Forgotten Rituals and Practices
Unfortunately, we were unable to make Ben Edge's Ritual Britain Exhibition at The Crypt Gallery in London, which explored our connection to ancient rituals passed on through generation after generation. There is a continued fascination with these rituals, we are also intrigued by their origins but also how they become shaped and adapted throughout an evolving tradition.
In a recent Guardian review of the exhibition, Bridget Christie quotes him as saying that the uncertainty around the origin of these rituals "creates a space for us to insert ourselves into them. It allows us to embellish and add to them – and it’s in the retelling of these stories that we keep them alive. They’re not relics from another time. They tell us who we used to be, but they also tell us who we are now, and who we want to be. They change and evolve just as we do – and they’re changing all the time."
We are not in the habit of taking a snapshot of the past and bringing it in to the present, we are adapting it, giving it our own interpretation and mixed in with this tradition is a curious mix of modern and ancient myth.
Even though we were unable to go on this occasion we hope the exhibition will be repeated or appear in other locations in the UK.
The Goathland Plough Stot
This footage from the BBC archive is a great account of the practice. Originally broadcast on 12th January 1973
https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/goathland-plough-stot-ceremony/zm4wcqt
More on the history of the Goathland Plough Stots here