This display weaves together some of the complex and varied conversations artists have with their surroundings. It maps a diverse range of responses to the natural environment, which can be an active, emotive, creative, or political force within artistic practice.  

Central to many of these investigations is the often precarious and contradictory relationship between humans and the world around us. Our environment is both a site of healing and belonging, and of potential alienation and conflict. Some artworks here allude to the exploitation of the landscape, charting histories of industry and ownership. Others reveal the role of creative communal projects as mechanisms of restorative change. 

Artists often respond to specific places or experiences within the landscape. In the hands of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, forces of nature are translated into bold colours and abstracted shapes on the canvas. While some artists transform the land they encounter into monuments of dirt and rock, Hamish Fulton and Thomas Joshua Cooper hardly intervene, using their bodies to map both familiar and uncharted terrains. Their artworks are communicated through photography or written text which evoke the bodily experience of the artists’ physical and spiritual journeys.  

Together these real and imagined lands invite us to consider how visual representations shape our individual and collective identities, and our sense of place in this interconnected world. 

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