Silly

“Silly” (a nickname for Sussex derived from the Saxon word for blessed: sælig), invites its viewers to dive down into the Knucker Hole. Having mysteriously slithered in and out of local records, photographer Toby Lamborn and writer Oliver Rimmer, engage with the local sites of this livestock-terrorising monster; the Knucker. Infamously dwelling in bottomless bodies of water, aptly named Knucker Holes, its tale is used to not only investigate the Sussex landscape but the layers of time that linger in its earth. Ideas of landscape and the creation of myth do not occur in a vacuum, tales of Knuckers alongside serpents and fairies all appear from scattered threads of history whereby stories, people and the landscape all interact with each other to create new futures for these tales to attach to. Drawing on folklore’s compounded framing of time, whereby stories mutate each time they are retold, the project invites the viewer to consider how photography and text might similarly engage themselves in the act of retelling.