On the outskirts of Manchester, between the urban and the rural we find liminal spaces: forgotten, ignored and passed-by, but teaming with abundant life.
A collaboration between Manchester-based visual artists Nick Jordan and Jacob Cartwright, The Unofficial Countryside is an observational portrait of the edgelands that exist between the urban and the rural. Titled after naturalist Richard Mabey’s seminal book, the film documents the intrinsic characteristics of these places, where nature thrives on the fringes of the city. Filmed in a patchwork of urban woodland, ramshackle smallholdings, abandoned industrial sites, utility substations, scrapyards, open fields and informal riverside beaches, the documentary includes a voiceover drawn from Marion Shoard’s essay ‘Edgelands of Promise’, and captures the rich biodiversity of both native and introduced species, in a landscape shaped by the activities and imprints of people passing through.
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