Project statement

I realised that despite my passion for the outdoors and the environment, I didn’t know very much about the landscapes I had been spending so much time in. In a study of fourteen European countries, the UK ranked lowest for its levels of nature connectedness, our relationship with nature is failing. In response to this, Landing works to engage more actively with the landscape and all of the life, challenges and history that it carries. Through fostering a haptic, expanded conversation about the land and our experiences within it, Landing encourages a deeper sense of responsibility to know, and from this, develop care for the land, whether that be a local green space or a mountainside.

The project challenges traditional landscape photography and the many complexities in its seductive but often problematic nature. Much of traditional landscape portrays distant, idealised vistas, without showing the involvement of humanity, the contextual issues, or the deep ecologies and processes that make up the land. In Photography and Landscape, Rod Giblett and Juha Tolonenwrite that "the concept of landscape encodes, measures and reproduces the viewer’s alienation from nature. Landscape measures our distance from land” (Giblett, Tolonen, 2012). Derek Gladwin coins the term ‘eco-haptic’ as using “visual tactility to develop a deeper, abiding relationship with the environment, resulting in a greater capacity for empathy and responsibility” (Gladwin, 2013). Influenced by these ideas, Landing shares stories of moving through and engaging with the land up close, printed on zines made from agricultural waste. Landing’s experimental approach works to explore the dynamic and intersectional layers within the environment and our relationship to it, navigating away from landscape and to the land itself.

Over the course of developing this body of work, I was privileged to experience and document walks and climbs at many different rural locations, either with the university mountaineering club, or my partner, Dylan. The four resulting zines focus on four specific places - Silverdale, Malham, Great Langdale and Chwarel Dinorwig. These zines act as a resource, a discussion, a story and a guide to encourage a closer relationship with the land and all the life that it carries, including ourselves.

Look closely, listen and be curious, so that we can all be better placed to know and respond to the challenges that the land, and therefore we, may face.

Giblett, R., Tolonen, J. (2012) Photography and Landscape. UK: Intellect. 

Gladwin, D. (2013) ‘Eco-Haptic Photography: Visualizing Irish Bogland in Rachel Giese’s The Donegal Pictures’, Photography and Culture, Vol. 6 - Issue 2, pp.157-174.