Events
Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, 3 July–5 September 2021
The Dick Institute, Kilmarnock, 11 September–11 December 2021
Featuring Dornith Doherty, Sant Khalsa, Chrystel Lebas, Heidi Morstang and Liz Orton.
In a world shaped by Covid-19, it seems more important than ever to consider nature, biodiversity, and the environment.
Seedscapes brings together five contemporary artists exploring global efforts to safeguard vital plant species from extinction. Plant diversity is rapidly declining and faces threats from global warming, pollution and war. Yet without seeds and their potential for food and medicine, we cannot sustain ourselves. Featuring photography, moving images and sculpture,
Seedscapes reveals how international artists, biologists and ecologists are responding to these challenges.
The exhibition is curated by
Liz Wells, professor in photographic culture, University of Plymouth.
Jessica Lennan and Robert Darch, 26 May 2021, Virtual event,14:00–15:30
Dartmoor Cup Marked Stones - Jessica Lennan
“I will be talking about the beginning of a new work, which is based on cup marked stones in Dartmoor and the use of clay to make imprints and casts of the cup marks. The project also marks a digression from my photographic practice and addresses questions about how to navigate and develop new approaches within a creative practice.”
Jessica Lennan is a photographer and Lecturer based in the South West of England. Her work is a careful and sensitive investigation of the social environment and more specifically of the relationship between people and places. She graduated from the Ostkreuzschool for Photography (Berlin/Germany) in 2009 and completed an MA in Photography and the Book at the University of Plymouth in 2012.
The Moor - Robert Darch
Robert will discuss the importance of autobiography, memory, and place in relation to his work on Dartmoor, referencing his debut book, The Moor (2018). The Moor depicts a fictionalised dystopian future situated on the bleak moorland landscapes of Dartmoor. Drawing on childhood memories of Dartmoor alongside influences from contemporary culture, the narrative references local and universal mythology to give context but suggests something altogether more unknown. The realisation of this dystopian future is specifically in response to a perceived uncertainty of life in the modern world and a growing disengagement with humanitarian ideals. The Moor portrays an eerie world that shifts between large open vistas, dark forests, makeshift dwellings, uncanny visions, and isolated figures.
Robert Darch is a British artist-photographer based in the South West of England. He has published and exhibited widely, and his photographs reside in public and private collections. He holds an MFA with distinction in Photographic Arts and a MA with distinction in Photography & the Book from the University of Plymouth. He also has a BA with honours in Documentary Photography from Newport, Wales. Robert is an Associate Lecturer in Photography at the University of Plymouth.
- Symposium II: International Environmental Arts Research Network
Perspectives: glacial landscapes within contemporary photographic practices
21 April 2021, 8am–11am (UK) 9am–12pm (Sweden) 9pm–12am (New Zealand)
How do we intervene photographically in the Arctic and Antarctic regions? The polar history has many examples of photographers and artists travelling to the Arctic region and Antarctica. Due to environmental change, the last two decades has seen a rise in Art & Science expeditions to these regions. During this event we will unravel various artistic research approaches by some of our network researchers who have worked specifically with glacial landscapes. We will encourage a discussion around the purpose of these practices and highlight why it may be of significance to our understanding of climate change, and how we can further act on positive actions.
Dr Simon Standing and Dr Kayla Parker, 24 February 2021
Contemporary British Housing – Dr Simon Standing
Architecture and urban development continue to hold a major fascination for me. In a new photographic series, which I'm referring to as Contemporary British Housing, I explore a fascination with the way in which a particular form of housing development has been appearing in the British landscape. A number of major developments have emerged in the late 20/early 21 century that draw on periods of architectural history and new planning and construction ideologies such as the New Urbanism movement. Within these developments there is a sense of accelerated place-making that I find fascinating, and at the heart of which are individual homes built in a variety of architectural styles from across the centuries, arriving in a matter of months.
Surveying the Laira – Dr Kayla Parker
A presentation by artist filmmaker, Kayla Parker, about her recent explorations with filmmaker and sound artist Stuart Moore, on foot and by kayak, of the Laira, the upper tidal estuary of the River Plym, on the south west coast of Britain.
Over the centuries, discharges from the tin mining and china clay works on nearby Dartmoor to the north have silted up the estuarine channel so it is now only navigable by small boats at high tide. From the early part of the 19th century, successive reclamation projects have reduced the width of the Laira, with embankments along the east and west sides of the estuary shore removing the large tidal creeks at Lipson Lake, Tothill Bay and Chelson Creek, and the more recent creation of Blagdon’s Meadow, designated a Country Wildlife Site.
Parker and Moore have been making work in the area around the Laira’s southern shoreline since 2004, using 16mm and 35mm film and digital technologies, and will reflect on the precarity of this zone of land, whose existence and habitats are threatened by encroaching tidal waters and the impacts of increased human activity.
