Call for Papers
The Long View: Art, a sense of place, belonging and reciprocity in relation to landscape.
Conference: 20 and 21 September 2024
Deadline for Proposal: 3 June 2024
Building on specific narratives of the New Forest, this conference will explore themes of place, people and natural landscapes in relation to National Parks, Public Art Collections, access to land and collective acts of ecological care. It aims to re-examine and radically reposition the role that art can play in this time of climate and nature crisis, moving beyond human-centred meaning and extractive narratives of nature in art and wider cultures of landscapes.
Today ‘landscape’ signifies a special somewhere over there, and there does not exist without people: “Landscape is constituted as an enduring record of – and testimony to – the lives and works of past generations who have dwelt within it, and in so doing, have left something of themselves.” (Ingold, 1983, p.1)
Landscape originally referred to rural scenery in paintings. Before the term landscape was employed c1620 land in Britain was represented by the action of the person or more-than-human, signifying what was happening at a specific time of year (Owen, 2020, p.39). In other words, land was woven into the fabric of being, there was no nature or landscape, but an objective and personal relationship with Place.
The New Forest is a unique place of woodlands, wetlands, coastlands, farmlands, heathlands and grasslands, an important wildlife habitat for a diverse number of fauna and flora. It is a National Park – a place to visit, a site (place) of special scientific interest (SSSI) and a place of landscapes shaped by the multi-species beings that reside within it. Commoning is practiced by New Forest Commoners who put their animals out to graze on the open Forest which plays a vital role in shaping the landscapes and biodiversity unique to this place.
The New Forest was saved from enclosure in 1877 through a determined campaign of exhibitions held in London featuring the New Forest landscape. This action through art happened simultaneously to the opening of Yellowstone National Park and Fontainebleau State Park demonstrating a compulsion at the time to protect specific landscapes from industrialisation. Many of the landscape paintings from these times now reside in Public Collections.
This two-day conference will dwell upon the urgent intersections of art and landscapes in a time of ecological crisis. Exploring:
Histories and future possibilities of place-based art and landscape painting in relation to social advocacy for nature preservation.
Values of National Parks and Art Collections in belonging to publics and fostering care.
Collective and commoning activity as acts of connection, kinship and stewardship.
Long Views: climate crisis timelines, landscapes viewed from afar, actions beyond a human life span…
This conference has been initiated by artist Dr Melanie Rose, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Leeds Arts and Humanities Institute (LAHRI). It is a joint endeavour with artist Laura Eldret who is currently undertaking a PHD at UWE Bristol. The conference is supported with funding from Leverhulme Trust, presented in partnership with New Forest National Park Authority and More Than Ponies. The Long View will take place in a treehouse venue within the New Forest, Hampshire on the 20 and 21 September 2024.
We invite expressions of interest to participate from researchers, artists and academics whose research connect with ideas of place, nature and landscape and may include:
Painting and place
Art and Ecology
Materials matter
Place and belonging
Contemporary commons
Nature connection
Relational landscapes
National Landscapes
Invisibilities within landscapes
Bioregionalism
Biodiversity and habitats
Art as advocacy and propaganda
Activism and access
Public places / public art
Collections and communities
Sustainable land and art practices
Memory and place
Mycorrhizal networks
Death and renewal
Please send a short 200 to 300-word proposal and up to 8 images for a 20-min presentation or workshop as one PDF document to mail@morethanponies.info.
Deadline: 3 June 2024
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References
Ingold, T. (1993). The Temporality of the Landscape. World Archaeology, 25(2), 152–174. http://www.jstor.org/stable/124811
Owen, S. (2020) The Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers and the British Landscape. London: Thames and Hudson.
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