Simon English tells a story

Imagine Dumbledore as a young man, if you consider magic as an art form.

This was my first thought when introduced to Simon English, the creator of the England Revisited project.

In 1971, as an art student in Leeds, Simon English had the idea to write “Earth” on the Earth with the most northern point in North America, inspired by a love of ordnance survey maps and cameras on weather-balloons.

As a prelude to this, he literally wrote “England” across the English landscape. Using an improbably combination of maths and geography, he mapped out the 75 points that would spell “England” and visited these points, leaving small English flags and a notice that explained why the flag was there, and his details if anyone wanted to contact him. People did contact him and told him the stories of what happened to his flags over the course of 40 years.

In 2010, Simon English revisited these 75 points. Some of the changes he encountered were drastic: one flag was in a quiet country lane in 1971; now it's in a housing estate in Milton Keynes.

This project was like a time sculpture, tracking the changes across the country. It's about the stories and the people surrounding the stories: place, time and change against a backdrop of past and present

Michelle Rose

The bloke who wrote England on England

The idea of writing 'England' on England is extraordinary enough, but when you see the catalogue of work Simon English has done towards this project, extraordinary just doesn't cover it. English himself stated his land art became more about the stories of each area, and the story of his journey certainly captivated me.

There was something enthralling about a young man in his 20s hitch-hiking his way up and down England putting up flags and taking photos at specific points, especially in the context of today; I know my mother wouldn’t let me do it. What is perhaps even more impressive is that he chose to do the same journey 40 years later, painstakingly locating each site and marking it with a new flag in a project called England Revisited.

As someone who grew to despise art following A Level, I whole-heartedly appreciate English for reigniting my interest, and for displaying such passion and dedication to a project which has found followers nationwide over the years, and now continues to do so via the internet.

I know I’m not the only member of that audience who wants to go and find ‘England’ written in England.

Katie Bamford

"When people are young, they don't think"

It's perhaps hard to associate sculpture with Ordnance Survey maps before seeing an example of Simon English’s work.

He firmly believes that art is about communication, not merely ‘things.’ He also stated that ‘when people are young, they don’t think, they just do.’ These are two of the reasons this conceptual artist/sculptor began his 1971 project. He planned to take a journey, marking his route onto a map into the shape of the word ‘England’ – placing little flags in each pointed destination as he came to them.

Last year, he began the project ‘England Revisited,’ taking the same route and photographing himself in the same places he had done forty years ago. The scenery wasn’t the only thing to have changed very little; he revisited an address he’d been to on the original journey, to discover the same man living there. The man was now in his nineties and remembered Simon clearly.

As somebody who is awful with a paintbrush and has trouble even navigating the way to the local shops, I found myself quite in awe of the project, not least for the exciting journey described. It is an intriguing piece of conceptual art – the thought that a creative project could come to life after beginning as little marks on a map was fascinating to me.


Stephanie-Louise Farrell