Videos, exhibitions & presentations
Newland: New Vision for a Wilder Future
An award-winning film created by Suzie Cross and Dave Lynch as part of the Tipping Points project highlights the role that farmers play as custodians of the land. Newland: new vision for a wilder future aims to dismantle the preconceptions and stereotypes assigned to farmers; to challenge negative perceptions of the delicate balance between agriculture and nature; and to encourage greater respect for the land from the public. The film was named Best Climate Emergency Film of the Year at the 2021 AHRC Research in Film Awards (RIFA).
The Mysterious Bird in the Moonlight
Members of the Tipping Points project have helped to develop a new children’s book, The Mysterious Bird in the Moonlight, by Steve Smallman. The book helps children (and their adults!) learn all about the nightjar, one of the UK’s most incredible nocturnal birds. Readers can join the nightjar on his migration journey all the way from Africa to the marshy heathlands of Britain, and discover the truth behind the stories and myths that surround this wonderful creature. Let the nightjar tell you his story through this heart warming tale of friendship and adventure.
Changing Treescapes Audio Walks
Grab your phone and head to your favourite tree space with one of these fantastic audio walks, provided by the TREESCAPES project team.
Deben Soundings Exhibition
An exhibition compiled by the Imagining the measure of change project team was put on display at Artspace in Woodbridge in September 2020. The project is based on a case study of the Deben estuary, Suffolk, where members of the project team have worked in collaboration with the local stakeholder participatory network, the Deben Estuary Partnership (DEP), as they progress a new estuary management strategy. The project was intended to provide a forum for participation, collaboration and conversation around key issues concerning the changes in the estuary landscape and its communities, however due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it was not possible to hold many of the participatory workshops that had originally been planned. The exhibition was therefore held as an alternative form of public engagement. More information on the project’s upcoming events are available here.
Winter Workshop Exhibitions
Artist Melanie Rose has curated a superb range of writing and artwork for three Winter Workshop Exhibitions. Created as part of the Tipping Points project, each collection showcases how we see and describe the landscapes around us. The three exhibitions at Stirley Farm, Wild Ennerdale, and Castle Howard feature work developed during a set of digital creative workshops. The materials from these workshops are available online.
Changing Landscapes Blog
The Changing landscapes, changing lives project has an active blog featuring contributions on a diverse range of topics. Articles include an analysis of children’s place-naming practices, and a discussion on the importance of developing an inclusive understanding of the countryside. The aim of the project is to examine how narrative and biographical perspectives can improve landscape decision making. You can read more about the work undertaken by the project team at the Changing landscapes, changing lives website.
Nuclear Legacies
‘Nuclear Legacies: Nuclear Energy and Farming Landscapes in Cumbria’ is a ‘slow conversation’, created by the Tipping Points project and led by Dr Lucy Rowland, featuring a collection of responses to the legacies and impacts of nuclear energy on the Cumbrian landscape and its people.
Alongside an essay, written by Lucy Rowland, the conversation showcases two poems and a film, written and produced by creative duo Harriet and Rob Fraser of somewhere-nowhere. All of these creative responses were informed by two interviews with the Cumbrian farmer Will Rawling, and the landscape around Ennerdale in Cumbria.
Unlocking landscapes
The Unlocking Landscapes project team are inviting people to share their experiences of ‘landscape’. These submissions will be featured on the project’s website as part of an initiative to explore the many ways in which landscapes become meaningful to diverse individuals and groups.
Contributions that have already been submitted include Pam Smith’s reflections on places to sit, a response to nature by Sarah Matthews, Danl Tetley’s memories of weekend escapes to the Moors and oceans, and Andy Harrod’s poignant description of his experiences walking across a moorland landscape.
Loxley Agden Damflask
As part of the HydroSpheres: co-design for landscape decision-making project, Harriet Tarlo and Kym Martindale have published a poem, Loxley Agden Damflask. The poem is part of a larger collection of poems that use field work, direct quotation, and found text from around the Sheffield Lakeland region.
New evidence on mitigation solutions
Dr Michelle Cain, a member of the A practical tool and robust framework for evaluating greenhouse gas emissions from land-based activities project team, participated in a session at the Climate Exp0 conference held by the COP26 Universities Network and the Italian University Network for Sustainable Development (RUS). The panellists discussed new evidence on climate change mitigation solutions ahead of the COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. Dr Cain introduced a tool for evaluating temperature outcomes from agricultural mitigation: Agrecalc and GWP*. A full recording of the session is available here (Dr Cain’s contribution begins around 30 minutes into the video).
Love and Soil
Created by the Tipping Points project in collaboration with Northern Heartlands Love & soil came about during the Covid crisis as part of an innovative online ‘slow’ conversation between farmers, conservationists, researchers and artists, that took place in the spring of 2021.
The conversation began with the idea of meeting in the ‘messy middle’ with the aim of it being the opposite of the polarised arguments that so often fill social media. Instead, this was a space to be thoughtful, connect and find shared meanings. This film is a curated thirty-minute film highlights that ‘slow’ conversation, giving a flavour of the discussion and opening it out to a wider audience, helping to bring together different perspective, build understanding and find common ground.
Changing Landscapes Symposia
The Changing Landscapes, Changing Lives project is organising a number of symposia. Students, academics and representatives from a variety of voluntary organisations, community groups, charities and relevant organisations will be invited to attend and participate in these events. The Project Team aim to bring different groups together and think about the deeply personal ways landscape matters to each of us. One of the ways that they are doing this is to have an open discussion facilitated by the project website where you will be invited to engage in discussions relevant to the project.
Pen & Plough Writing Workshop Exhibition
Part of the Tipping Points project, this writing course was established as part of the Pen & Plough initiative, a unique workshop for farmers and land workers to help them to develop skills and celebrate the unique relationship between the land and those who work on it. Led by Emily Diamand and Patrick Laurie, several aspiring writers from across the UK came together over six weeks to collaborate and share ideas on themes such as descriptive writing, character and place. A series of exercises, workshops and one-to-one study sessions were held throughout the spring of 2021, and it became clear that strong voices were beginning to emerge from the experience of farming; the pleasure and pains of a life drawn directly from the soil. This Exhibition shares some of the results in the form of extracts, passages and poems from the workshops in this special Pen and Plough online exhibition.
Introduction to the Landscape Decisions Programme
In this short video Landscape Decisions SPF Programme Coordination Team Chair, Heiko Baltzer explains the programme to the Contemporary Environments Research Group at the University of Leicester in February 2021
Artists’ Conversations
As the UK languished in the third Coronavirus pandemic lockdown in January 2021, the Landscapes of Post-War Infrastructure team in collaboration with the Modernist Society ran a series of three online conversations, with pairings of visual and literary artists whose works also address infrastructure.
The Landscapes Podcast
A series of interview style podcasts about land. by Landscape Decisions Fellow Adam Calo,
Art is not an Island
Created for the AALERT 4DM project this stunning video, made during the Covid pandemic, following all Government guidelines, documents the impact of creative practitioners upon the Islands Of Eigg and North Uist in Scotland. Narrated + produced by Ewan Allinson. Directed + Filmed +Edited by Maria Rud. Soundtrack by DJ Dolphin Boy.
Written in the Land Reflections and Exhibition
During the last months of 2021, the Landscape Decisions Programme worked with established authors Emily Diamand and Patrick Laurie to offer a writing tuition course for farmers and land workers across Britain. Written in the Land offered eight applicants from across the UK support through a range of subjects designed to improve their skill as writers. The workshops were first devised as part of the Tipping Points project and Pen and Plough collaboration by Dr Pippa Marland at the University of Bristol.
