HTSI editor’s letter: the pull of Country

Things have a strange way of bubbling into the public consciousness. Until about six months ago I had scarcely heard the word “mudlarking”, imagining, if pushed, the kind of raggedy urchins one might encounter in a Dickens tale. Then, suddenly, it was everywhere. Jeweller Ruth Tomlinson was scavenging the Thames for treasures to form the basis of an Offerings collection that she cast back one high tide; Lara Maiklem’s books on the subject have been scaling the bestseller lists; and then I received an email from the photographer duo Hill & Aubrey, who wondered if I might be interested in a fashion story they wanted to shoot during the annual Richmond “draw-off”. Not since I lived on a houseboat for a short spell at Chelsea Wharf back in the 1990s were the tidal patterns of the capital’s main waterway so present in my mind. 

The draw-off, when the river is drained between Richmond and Teddington Locks, lasts for only a few weeks, so the decision to undertake a shoot was quickly made. Hill & Aubrey worked with our style director Isabelle Kountoure and model Phoebe Matthews to put together a shoot last November, a freezing, muddy enterprise for which they were rewarded with exceptional autumn light. The banks of the Thames tell an extraordinary story: look closely and they reveal many centuries of urban life. One half of the partnership, James Aubrey, captures his fascination with the water in the short piece that accompanies the shoot. Meanwhile, for this week’s FT Weekend podcast, I’ve headed to the other end of London, to Rotherhithe, with Lara Maiklem to find out why the business of Thames-side bounty hunting, first popularised in the 18th and 19th century by some of London’s most impoverished people, has been rediscovered by a new generation of larkers in 2022.

Country, the philosophy that has been observed by the Australian Aboriginal community for centuries, has also received renewed interest. As with any indigenous culture, the artists don’t require the recognition of western galleries, exhibitions and collectors to legitimise their practice, but the surge in attention to talents such as Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Daniel Walbidi and Angelina Pwerle has done much to educate us about the meaning of Country and its precepts. We’re extremely grateful also to Steve Martin, an art collector who has advocated the brilliance of Aboriginal art for years. The actor and comedian let us photograph him with some of his beloved acquisitions, works he rightly thinks should hang alongside Agnes Martin and Jackson Pollock in the canon of contemporary art. 

Who looks at Britain and dreams of making it home?

There may be no Aboriginal art in the home of Pedro Girao, chairman of Christie’s International advisory board, and his husband, the interior designer Damian Byrnes, but it does contain dozens of pieces that tell the history of art – from a wall hanging by Alexander Calder to Japanese temple flowers from the Meiji period. Pedro arrived in London from Portugal as a teenager in 1976 and built his life here; Damian is Australian by birth. Reading their story, written by Fiona Golfar, makes me wonder where Britain’s cultural life is leading. Are people still drawn to the capital as they once were? Who now looks at Britain as a teenager and dreams of making it their home? As only a cursory sweep of the Thames reveals, millions of immigrants and travellers from hundreds of nationalities have passed through or ended up in this big, strange, often toxic and completely magical city. I hope the same multiculturalism will infuse London for many tides to come. 

@jellison22