Landscape Archives - ClimateCultures - creative conversations for the Anthropocene

Standing in Relationship with Land

Artist Jennifer Leach offers a ‘case study with no answers’; how (and whether) to engage with issues of right land relationship with resistance but not aggression: pausing, listening, acting with integrity, and being at peace with our choices.

2,270 words: estimated reading time = 9 minutes

How to be in this world right now, how to act, how best to use our creative gifts, and what voice to speak out with – a case study with no answers.

There is a strong argument growing right now, that engaging oppositionally with systemic injustice only serves to fuel polarities and division within a system that is heading for collapse. The advocates of this argument, many of them community leaders engaged in stunning endeavours of nurture and growth, are encouraging us to transfer our energies into laying fresh foundations for a more loving, more equitable world. I, like many activists, artists, and people with heart, find myself caught deep in this place of ‘no longer and not yet’. And I personally have been deeply impacted by the Walk for Peace monks in the USA, who have so visibly demonstrated radical change through embodied non-engagement with any political landscape. I find myself arriving in an internal place of peace beyond conflict, whose rules of reflection in the outer world I do not yet understand. I am unsure whether there remains any useful place, for me, for protest and challenge. Others of you may feel the same, and I share here a case study that illustrates this dilemma.

Standing tall with the more-than-human

In 2023, our community fought hard to prevent a local golf course, a major green lung of Reading, from being swallowed up by naked greed in the form of a large deluxe housing estate. In the history of planning in the UK, there had never been any application with a greater number of objections, over 4,000. Planning was denied twice, but on the third time of asking (like a bad fairytale), the Council voted in favour of the scheme. We, the community, gasped, we shouted, we cried, we were reprimanded for bad behaviour in the Council chamber. The scheme rolled inexorably ahead.

It felt important to bear witness to this swallowing of the land, in particular to the 112 trees that were to be felled. With Andrea Carr, friend and fellow ClimateCultures member, we came together with the community to do just this. We bound each doomed tree with a white band of muslin, photographed and honoured it. I had already spent months with the trees, photographing and recording each one of them, and I believe they reciprocated by revealing to me their unique energies in the photographs I took. Our project, Standing Tall, can be seen on the Outrider Anthems website.

Land relationship: Showing trees destined to be felled bound with white muslin to honour them. Photograph by Jennifer Leach. — Honouring the trees to be felled. Photograph: Jennifer Leach © 2022

The trees were felled, the deluxe detached houses are being built, with a token number of ‘affordable’ terraced houses (costing £500,000+) available through shared ownership with housing associations. And with the cement mixers still churning, the developers moved on to Phase II.

How then to participate in this second phase of landgrab within my community? By the time it raised its head, I was shifting further away from resistance, to focus more on the resolution of inner conflict and division, learning to be more humble in my judgement of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Concentrating on becoming the peace I wish to see in the world. And yet, the land, the beautiful land! How could I not help defend it?

I felt that using my creativity to reflect a changed dialogue might be the most helpful course of action, and so I made two small physical books, one called Standing Tall, the other The Land in Relationship. These small books are things of beauty, and in their own quiet way, radical. Standing Tall is a portrait of the land and the trees, a record of the art intervention led by Andrea and myself, and a pictorial record of the land during and after building. The loss of habitat is quietly evidenced. When the huge ‘protected’ oak sheds a limb through stress, it reads like a climactic moment in a story of loss. The book concludes with the words: “Fairfax Ltd is now submitting applications to build on the remaining golf course land. We dream that they may not succeed. We dream of a world where housing is no longer built for excessive profit and gain. Where housing is not seen as an investment. Where people own only the one home they live in. We dream of a time when, in the making of all decisions, the land, the community, and the more-than-human will, at last, be honoured again.”

Land relationship: Showing trees where only houses now stand. Photograph: Jennifer Leach © 2022 — Houses now, where these trees stood. Photograph: Jennifer Leach © 2022

The second book, The Land in Relationship, maps out the reality of inappropriate, insensitive planning actions, by placing the proposed site (always so prettily coloured in the application paperwork) within its landscape, naming all that is bound in relationship to it – the land surrounding it, the fauna and flora, the community, the ecosystem, the planet. It ends with the text: “It is time – long past time – to move back into right relationship with the land. There is no greater priority.”

Showing a Trapped tree, isolated in the new development. Photograph byJennifer Leach 2026 — Trapped tree: isolated in the new development. Photograph: Jennifer Leach © 2026

These books are intended to re-establish contact with a truth nearly always crushed by the language and aggression of planning.

Creativity and witnessing for land relationship

Having completed the books, and not sure how best to share them, I was invited to speak at the government inquiry that was set up to decide on the Phase II planning application once South Oxfordshire District Council had turned it down and the planners had put in their inevitable appeal. And in this forum came the greatest ethical and spiritual rub for me. I did not know what I should say, nor what voice to use. I did not know how to use my creativity in the best interests of the land and the community, in a system that is inherently undemocratic and whose language is strident and disassociated. Should I be poetic, sharp, gentle, visionary, forceful?

After much thought, I wrote a story, The Oligopoly, using the language of my profession as artist and storyteller. I took three small oak trees up to the stand with me, and I shared my story. It was a tale that took no prisoners, and which, according to my own truth, laid bare the underlying narrative of bullying, greed and systematic aggression that underpins the highway to societal and environmental collapse. It ended with a provocation: “Change must start here, now, in rooms such as these. With acts of principled wisdom and clear thinking, based on necessity. If not for [the people] themselves, then for their children, and the children of all species.”

Showing: Stencil graffiti by Edward von Lõngus, Tallinn (removed by the authorities) — Stencil graffiti by Edward von Lõngus, Tallinn (removed by the authorities)

You can listen to my recording of The Oligopoly here:

Throughout my delivery, I could see the developers squirming. What was worse, I could feel the whole room squirming. At the end of my tale, I gave the inspector, and the developers, a copy each of the government’s 2026 Joint Committee of Intelligence National Security Report, and a copy of my two small books; they were filed under evidence.

I returned to my seat, feeling the intense discomfort not only of the developers, but of ‘my side’ too. I felt deeply uncomfortable. Exposed. I felt confrontational. Had I overstepped the mark? Had I alienated the inspector? Had I imposed my own act of hostility, and furthered rigidity and conflict, with a horrible sense of moral superiority, through the telling of my story? Could I have told a different story or used a different voice? Reader, I do not know.

What I do know is that local naturalists spoke knowledgably and movingly about the bats and the wildlife and the ancient wonder of the local Cucumber Wood, and conscientious volunteers and low-paid councillors from local neighbourhood groups and parish councils, who had spent months preparing a case to save the land, committed to five full days of the excruciating minutiae and scrutiny of planning-speak. And what I also know is that the inspector, when visiting the site itself, spent longer there, and walked further, than in any other site visit the lawyers could recall.

A few days ago, against all the odds, against all the predictions, the planning application was turned down. The inspector’s report was attentive and balanced; he had recognised the beyond-monetary value of the land, he had recognised the land in relationship, and he had honoured it.

I wonder still about my role, and inner conflict remains. Did I ‘grab the burning rope’ of resistance, and fight against a development that may indeed need to happen, before something better is born? Am I guilty of delaying the inevitable death of a system, I who believe so strongly in allowing the natural arrival of endings? Are acerbic acts of truthtelling helpful, or are they simply aggressive? Do they belong to the old adversarial system, or can they be supportive because they are ultimately rooted in acceptance rather than in conflict and anger? Perhaps in this instance the creative shake up was necessary, so that the inspector could see and listen differently. Perhaps it allowed the pleas of the community to be heard, and the quieter voice of the books to seed better. Perhaps it had no impact whatever. Who knows?

As a codicil to the story, Fairfax Housing and Reading Golf Club have just put in an appeal to the High Court, citing injustice and unfairness in the inspector’s report. Should the High Court accept their appeal, a different inspector will be appointed and the inquiry will begin all over again. The unremitting process continues. In light of this, I feel happier that I named and framed the developers’ merciless persistence within the context of a process that masquerades as democratic.

And so, for now, the case study ends. What is my conclusion? All I can really say, after much consideration, is this: in an extremely difficult time of shift, flux and changing systems, as we are compelled to face with renewed honesty our own individual approaches, pausing long, listening deeply and acting authentically are the best yardsticks, perhaps the only yardsticks, we have. And if we act so, we should then accept that we have then done our best, made the best decisions we could, and have acted with integrity. And that we should be at peace with our choices.

Find more

You can find more on Outrider Anthems’ Standing Tall project — along with digital flipbooks of the two books Jennifer presented to the council meeting — here on the OA website, and in Jennifer’s piece for our Creative Showcase: Standing Tall, 2022.

Jennifer has shared the text of her story, The Oligopoly, on her new Substack: “This substack space is going to be a mixture of myself and the organisation I founded in 2011 – Outrider Anthems. I am an artist, writer, advocate for the Earth, and a fan of life cycles and endings rather than exponential growth curves. I believe we as a global society have entered the ragged space between ‘the no longer and the not yet’, and we will need to work hard and listen well to find a new way forward in community. This is what I will be exploring here, hopefully in conversation with others.”

As reported by the CIEEM (Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management) and The Guardian, the UK’s Joint Committee of Intelligence report, National security assessment on global ecosystems, was published in January 2026 “with no press briefing, headlines or apparent ministerial comment, the report has landed amid a news cycle dominated by the World Economic Forum in Davos. Yet its conclusions are stark and far-reaching, with profound implications for environmental policy, planning and public investment in nature.” The CIIEM continues: “Of particular concern is the report’s conclusion that, if current trends continue, every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse, and that ecosystem collapse is highly likely to drive national security risk.”

The Walk for Peace, led by Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara, is a journey dedicated to raising awareness of peace, loving-kindness, compassion, and unity. This historic journey began at the Hương Đạo Vipassana Bhavana Center in Fort Worth, Texas, and travelled over 2,300 miles to reach its destination in Washington, D.C.

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From 2026, ClimateCultures is inviting members to say a sentence or two about how they use AI in their work and in their posts for us. We will be exploring this in future posts here and at our ClimateCultures & more Substack.

Jennifer – “The question of AI? Intrinsically I do not like it. I do not like who has inputted the data, how the data has been sourced, its internal biases, and who is seeking to make money, and gain power, from its use. I do not like how it has become our path, without debate and without consensus. I do not like how it replaces human effort and makes it easy to relieve ourselves of critical thinking. I do not like the cheesy, saccharine images that are its representation of spirituality, nor the ‘wonders of nature’ that it seeks to fabricate and enhance, as if they are not naturally wonderful enough. To the new parameters of ‘perfection’ it sets, I find myself responding with more mess, more spontaneity, more deliberate ‘imperfection’. This I like. I do confess to using it to cheat at Wordle, and my Spanish and elementary Zulu have been made possible through the AI owl service that is Duolingo.”

Jennifer Leach

A poet, writer, performer and storyteller whose wild work, forged in the fantastical reaches of deep imagination, brings to life new stories for our strange times.

Hey! Earthlings! A Field Guide to Connecting

Artist Andrew Howe shares a collaborative project with fellow artists and migrants to bring together creativity, community and heritage, building trust, reframing narratives in an era of climate crisis and showing we are all earthlings, connected with nature.

2,230 words: estimated reading time = 9 minutes

At a time when the ground beneath us is shifting — politically, ecologically, socially — what does it mean to belong?

Environmental crises are intensifying and so is human movement — quietly, unevenly, and often without recognition. Creative practice has a vital role to play in response: not simply to draw attention to change, but to hold space for connection, dignity, and shared experience.

Hey! Earthlings! emerged from this context as both a project and a provocation — an invitation to rethink how we connect across difference, and how art might help cultivate belonging in an age of displacement.

Beginnings — from idea to collective action

This project began as an idea some years ago to invite people who have moved across borders, or with connections to other places through family and heritage, to join with us and share stories, sounds, and creative responses through walks and making. A simple idea, but multi-layered and rich with potential to help participants build stronger connections to local nature and heritage and, perhaps, find a new sense of place and belonging in Shropshire.

As conversations developed, a core team formed: myself, as an artist working in sound, painting, printmaking, and other media; Jill Impey – an artist working in video, sound and printmaking; and Jean Atkin – a poet and writer. Together, under Participate Contemporary Artspace CIC (now Participate Co-labs), we shaped the project and secured funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund in Summer 2024. After a period of careful planning, our activities got underway during Spring/Summer 2025.

Hey! Earthlings! unfolded amid increasing social division in the UK and growing hostility toward migrants and refugees. Against this background, the project took on a deeper significance: to offer a counter-narrative grounded in generosity, creativity, and welcome.

“The project challenged the idea that we live in a world of ‘not enough’. In reality, the Earth is abundant, and people naturally want to contribute meaningfully to the places they live and without the negative narrative and fear-based leadership in the world, humans would naturally share without fear.”
— Amanda Jones, Founder of Shropshire Supports Refugees

Climate Change and the movement of people

Practitioners engaging with climate themes cannot ignore migration.

The relationship between climate change and migration is complex, but the global effects of both phenomena are undeniable. Extreme weather events — floods, storms, droughts — are already forcing millions to move. Slower environmental changes, such as desertification or rising sea levels, impact on livelihoods too. The frequency and severity of these events are increasing.

UNHCR estimates indicate that tens of millions of people are displaced each year by sudden environmental events, while projections produced by the World Bank indicate that by 2050, hundreds of millions could be internally displaced due to long-term climate impacts.

These figures reduce human lives to statistics and do not capture the lived experience of losing home, identity, culture, agency, assets and dignity and the search for belonging.

This is where art has a humanising role to hold spaces where people can speak, create, and connect.

Walking as method: reconnecting through landscape

We held three Hey! Earthlings! creative events at each of two pairs of locations in Shropshire, offering important natural and historic heritage to explore by walking together:

Old Oswestry Iron Age Hill Fort and Oswestry Memorial Hall
Doctor’s Field countryside site and Darwin House, The Mount, Shrewsbury (Charles Darwin’s birthplace and childhood home).

These are all located within or very close to the towns of Oswestry and Shrewsbury, and so were relatively easily accessible, with the potential for participants to return again in future.

Each of the events comprised an artist-led walk followed by a creative workshop.

We were inspired by artist Henna Asikainen and her use of walks in projects with refugees and migrants. Walking offers a shared rhythm. It dissolves hierarchies. It allows for informal conversation, chance encounters, quiet reflection and freedom to explore the surrounding landscape.

The group bonded through creativity and shared experience, taking opportunities to translate for each other and share food and song whilst gathered around a fire.

Showing Hey! Earthlings! participants listening to the river. Photo: by Anna Martin 2025. Project by Andrew Howe. — Hey! Earthlings! listening to the river. Photo: Anna Martin © 2025

Each walk started with a grounding meditation. We then listened to the river and trees, we foraged, shared stories and words about nature, and played parachute games. The group(s) learned about local history and nature, sharing oral histories, making films and co-creating art.

After scrambling over steep ramparts to the top of the Old Oswestry Hillfort, we used a compass at this 360-degree viewpoint to orient ourselves to local landmarks and distant homelands.

These multi-sensory walks enabled people to compare common or shared experiences from other places, and find meaning, empathy and compassion.

“Being in nature evokes a sense of home and belonging (the trees are not lost): the wind is the wind, the rain is the rain, the sun rises for all the stars and moon are the same ones their families see across the world. This reinforced the idea that humans are children of the Earth and of the stars. The Earth has no borders; birds and fish do not need passports.”
— Amanda Jones, Founder of Shropshire Supports Refugees

Hey! Earthlings! Expressing belonging through creativity

Following the walks we returned to workshop venues to respond creatively.

The approach was intentionally open, flexible and welcoming. We offered printmaking, drawing, writing, small book-making, and other collaborative activities, allowing participants of all ages and abilities to engage in ways that felt comfortable, safe and meaningful.

The workshops were not set up as places of instruction, but as opportunities for exchange. Participants brought their own knowledge, skills, and creative traditions. It was a delight when two young Ukrainian participants asked if they could lead some creative sessions during the workshops — an offer we embraced and celebrated.

The shift from facilitator to co-creator crucially challenges the notion of participants as recipients and instead recognises them as contributors and artists with knowledge to share.

Showing Hey! Earthlings! participants preparing cyanotype prints. Photo: Andrew Howe Project by Andrew Howe. — Hey! Earthlings! participants preparing cyanotype prints. Photo: Andrew Howe © 2025

The resulting artworks were vibrant, layered, and deeply personal. They spoke of journeys, memories, loss, resilience, and joy. They reflected not only the challenges of displacement, but also the richness that diverse communities bring to local contexts.

Building trust: the role of an ethical framework

Underpinning the whole of our project was an ethical framework devised by Jill Impey. This guided our delivery to ensure everyone involved felt safe and welcome, providing a reference or set of prompts to guide actions and relationships throughout from beginning to end.

The ethical framework aims to embed respect, honesty and understanding in working with participants, with our supporting organisations and with each other. When working with people who may have experienced trauma, displacement, or marginalisation, the stakes are high.

Showing the Hey! Earthlings! Ethical Framework. — Hey! Earthlings! Ethical Framework.

The framework emphasises:

Empathy and compassion as foundational values, cultivating a culture of care
Inclusion and accessibility to remove barriers to participation
Respect and honesty in all interactions
Agency and consent, ensuring participants retained control over their stories and contributions
Reciprocity, recognising that exchange must be mutual, not extractive.

This framework was not simply theoretical. It informed practical decisions — from how we structured workshops, to how we developed relationships with partner organisations, to how we shared outcomes.

It also provided a crucial anchor for the team, offering a shared language and set of principles to navigate complex situations.

Partnership and participation

The project was made possible through a network of partnerships, including community organisations, cultural institutions, and local authorities.

Participants came from a wide range of backgrounds: young people from Bulgarian schools, asylum seekers from countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Sierra Leone and Vietnam, newly settled Ukrainians, and individuals connected through refugee support networks and community groups. Each event was tailored towards the particular group attending.

We were very fortunate to be able to appoint two experienced community co-ordinators, Anna Martin and Marina Churm. During project planning, we consulted with various community groups to gauge interest and shape the activities for the events.

Both Anna and Marian proved invaluable to the project as they engaged so positively with groups they had existing connections with and with other community leaders who could help link to a wider network and invite people to work with us. Building trust takes time, sensitivity, and existing relationships. Their work ensured that participants felt welcomed, informed, and supported throughout the process.

The team were supported by local artists, Jamila Walker Thomas and Niki Holmes, and project evaluator and mentor, Cerin Mills.

Meaningful engagement cannot be rushed or assumed. It requires investment in relationships, and often collaboration with those who already hold trust within communities.

Sharing responses: rethinking the ‘Cabinet’

We showed the work made at the events in a travelling cabinet at exhibitions in local libraries and museums. These took place at Oswestry Library; Gateway Arts and Education Centre, Shrewsbury Library and Shropshire Archives. The mobile cabinet is made with reclaimed furniture and is able to host and display a range of materials, sounds and video. Its many drawers, compartments and fold-out doors invite visitors to interact with the cabinet and explore for themselves.

Showing the Hey! Earthlings! cabinet in Shrewsbury library. Photo: Andrew Howe 2025. Project by Andrew Howe. — Hey! Earthlings! cabinet in Shrewsbury library. Photo: Andrew Howe © 2025

Cabinets like this one have long been used to collect and display objects deemed unfamiliar, unusual or exotic — often telling stories about people rather than with them. We aimed to do things differently by inviting the participants to have a stake in curating the exhibition and deciding how to present their work on their own terms.

Rather than turning lives into curiosities, this Cabinet asks us to be curious with empathy — and to reflect on how we might tell richer, more respectful stories in the future.

Shared responses also included a series of collaborative poems edited by Jean Atkin, a short film edited by Jill Impey and a series of soundscapes of stories, reflections and field recordings edited by me. The soundscapes were installed as audio trails at Old Oswestry Hillfort and at Doctor’s Field in Shrewsbury, and can also be streamed from the Participate website.

A Field Guide to Connecting

Towards the end of the project, we prepared a Field Guide to Connecting: a resource for sharing our experience to help other practitioners deliver multi-cultural community arts and heritage projects effectively.

The Guide is aimed towards:

Artist peers/creative practitioners
Community workers and organisations
Fundraisers seeking funding for similar projects

The Guide provides some key reference sheets, such as the Ethical Framework and Ingredients for Success, which include prompts and practical advice. This is supplemented by information from our Hey! Earthlings! project describing our approach, supported by sample documents.

The document is designed not as a fixed methodology, but as a flexible, adaptable resource — something that can be used, questioned, and reshaped. It moves beyond theory into practice, offering grounded insights into what works, what challenges arise, and how they might be navigated.

Showing the Hey! Earthlings! Field Guide to Connecting — Hey! Earthlings! Field Guide to Connecting

Reframing migration: from crisis to contribution

One of the most powerful shifts within Hey! Earthlings! is its reframing of migration.

“Many displaced people are treated as passive objects, moved like pieces on a chessboard. Used for political games and leverage and discarded when no more use. This results in adding to their deep grief, a sense of betrayal, and a loss of agency. It can feel as traumatising for them as the reason why they are here — just in a different way. Reframing migrants as contributors, creators, and community members is vital for their healing and for the communities that receive them.”
— Amanda Jones, Founder of Shropshire Supports Refugees

Too often, migrants and displaced people are positioned as problems to be solved, burdens to be managed, or victims to be pitied. This narrative not only dehumanises individuals but also obscures their agency, creativity, and potential contributions.

By contrast, Hey! Earthlings! foregrounds participants as creators, collaborators, and community members, and aims to foster more inclusive communities. Our project offered alternative narratives to dominant, often divisive discourses and engaged with global issues through local, embodied experience.

Hey! Earthlings! offers an invitation to recognise ourselves as Earthlings – a condition we share with every living organism inhabiting and depending on a single, fragile planet.

Find more

The projections Andrew gives on displaced people due to long-term climate impacts are from Climate change-induced migration: UK collaboration with international partners by Thomas Weston (September 2023).

You can explore Hey! Earthlings! at the project pages on the Participate Co-labs website — including a download of A Field Guide to Connecting, an 8-minute video, a guided grounding meditation and two audio trails of Old Oswestry Hillfort and Doctor’s Field, consisting of collaborative poems performed by Jean Atkin, shared stories and reflections on the events at the Hillfort, and a soundscape of an imagined Iron Age village. This series of soundscapes was edited by Andrew Howe using field recordings made at the Hillfort, and poems created using words by participants at events and edited by Jean Atkin.

Participate Co-labs (formerly Participate Contemporary Artspace) is an artist-run community interest company, set up in 2015 by Jill Impey, Elizabeth Turner and Keith Ashford to create space for artists to work and exhibit in Shrewsbury, Shropshire.

Shropshire Supports Refugees was established in 2016 to bring relief and support to vulnerable families displaced by unrest in their home countries relocating to Shropshire.

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Andrew – “I occasionally use AI for some functional, time-saving tasks like transcribing spoken word recordings or helping to reduce word count in written drafts before I re-edit into my own style. It can be useful to provide simple, clear summaries or comparisons between options when I have gathered and checked material myself, as I don’t fully trust AI with factual research. In my artist practice, I often move between analogue and digital processes, which I control, but I don’t like the aesthetics of AI-generated imagery and I don’t find it very effective in developing creative ideas.”

Andrew Howe

An interdisciplinary artist and project manager using walking and mapping to explore how people interact with places, drawing attention to human entanglements within a multi-species environment.

Eternal Forest Sanctuary: Vision to Living Commitment

Artist Evgenia Emets shares the development of her Eternal Forest sanctuary vision into its latest phase as the Seed of Eternal Forest, with opportunities for artists, scientists and thinkers globally to become a movement and mutually supportive network.

2,100 words: estimated reading time = 8 minutes

ClimateCultures editor Mark Goldthorpe has followed Eternal Forest since 2019 and, for this post, shared questions with Evgenia as she was drafting it.

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“Eternal Forest is a living commitment that reminds us across generations: we are nature, and by regenerating forest, we regenerate ourselves.”

Looking back at your decision to start Eternal Forest, what was your inspiration for this, and what did you set out to achieve? How do you feel about that looking back now?

My original inspiration to start Eternal Forest came from witnessing the deep disconnect our culture has created between forests and people. I began Eternal Forest in 2018, six months after moving from the UK to Portugal, and shortly after witnessing the aftermath of devastating fires that destroyed large areas of land here.

These were not just forest fires. They were the result of pervasive monocultures, especially eucalyptus plantations, which have profoundly altered the landscape, increased its vulnerability and reduced its resilience. My initial question was to explore how we might reconnect humans and forests, not only through art, but also through remembering and reactivating our sacred relationship with forests.

Much of my inspiration came from seeing that for millennia, Indigenous and traditional communities across the world have lived in deep reciprocity with their natural environments, holding forests as spiritually significant and relational beings. The understanding that our material and immaterial cultures come directly from forests became a foundation for my work.

Showing artist Evgenia Emets at forest cave. Photograph by Marco Piano, Eternal Forest, 2025 — Photograph: Marco Piano, Eternal Forest © 2025

Eternal Forest Sanctuary

In the early years, I created the vision for an Eternal Forest Sanctuary — a physical space (reforested or restored and protected) focused on biodiversity and natural habitats, created through art with communities as long-term stewards of this forest. While my experience and practice are rooted in Portugal, where I live, I see the intentional creation of forest spaces, which we can call sanctuaries, as necessary and timely.

Looking back now, I can say that dedicating my time to Eternal Forest has opened many possibilities in my artistic practice. It revealed new paths of knowledge about forests, showed new ways of learning and being with this wonderful and complex organism. It also opened new relationships with people and organisations: scientists, artists, researchers, and regenerators of many kinds. And artistically it offered me a completely different medium — I started exploring how forest itself can be a methodology and what I could do differently with my art if forest were my studio, my medium, my collaborator and my gallery.

As the project evolved, and as I evolved with it, my perspective also shifted. In the beginning, my focus was more on what was missing and where the gaps were. Gradually, this changed into uncovering and witnessing the beautiful possibilities that already exist in our relationship with forests around the world. Whether we encounter healthy forests or forests in need of restoration, there is always a way to experience joy, to lean into the deep unlearning and receive wisdom directly from the land and its beings.

“We are forest, and we are not separate from it” — this core perspective led me to explore subjects such as forest sentience, plant intelligence, finding ways to communicate with nature and being led by the land while working on projects.

Embodying deep connection

What have you learned so far that was maybe a surprise? Or what have others brought to the project?

One of the most surprising experiences for me last year was realising how deeply we are connected to the land through our bodies, our psyche, our imagination, and our emotions. Intellectually, this is something we already understand, or at least we think we do. But it was only through working closely with the land, especially while walking with the land and designing Eternal Forest in Faia Brava, that this understanding became fully embodied.

Showing Evgenia Emets, Eternal Forest. Photograph by Marco Piano, Eternal Forest, 2025 — Photograph: Marco Piano, Eternal Forest © 2025

I began to sense how intrinsically interconnected we are, almost like entangled bodies that, once they have encountered each other, remain in communication. What happens to the land happens to us, and what happens to us also affects the land. When we work with land that has been disrespected or shaped by extractive behaviours, we feel that impact in our own bodies and inner landscapes.

The healing that takes place through restoration and through re-revealing the land’s beauty is mirrored by a healing within our own psyche and physical being. The experience of pain, the witnessing of beauty, the awe of natural phenomena, the sensual moments of being in close touch with the beings of the land, the spiritual closeness of encountering a rare animal — all that goes both ways, it’s a constant conversation. And then how all of that can be woven into practice, into artwork, linked back into the loop of co-regulating and co-evolving.

I am still exploring creative ways to tune more deeply into this field, and to find forms of expression that allow me to transform and alchemise these experiences and share them with others by creating sanctuaries, trails, poetry, and landmarks.

The Seed of Eternal Forest

What is the latest phase of work? What comes next?

One of the latest phases of my work is the creation of the Seed of Eternal Forest in Faia Brava in Portugal. The Seed represents a beginning. It is usually a small-scale intervention that initiates a much longer process of an Eternal Forest Sanctuary on a bigger size land.

In this case, we are working with a conservation organisation in Portugal called Faia Brava, on a very beautiful site along the wild and ancient Côa River, a UNESCO heritage site, with 30,000-year-old engravings of wild animals dotted around the river valley from the hunter-gatherer era. It is such an inspiration for any artist to be connecting with this ancient land. We are working in a context of ageing and declining rural populations, severe deforestation and land degradation, and extremely low rainfall, with conditions that increasingly resemble a semi-desert landscape.

Showing The Eternal Forest 'Seed' image on the ground. Aerial photography by Marco Piano, Eternal Forest, 2025 — Photograph: Marco Piano, Eternal Forest © 2025

The first intervention we created is a 30-metre-diameter Seed. This is a symbolic moment that emerges from working closely with the land: observing it, listening to it, and understanding the ecosystem, including which species might arrive and which might remain over time. Our next phase is to go through the process of developing an artistic regenerative design for forest and ecosystem restoration across a much larger area of 10ha, a process that will unfold over many years.

When I approach design, I ask myself: What is the experience people will have when they visit this place? What is the experience of the local community and their relationship to the land? What kinds of experiences can other artists have here, and how might they contribute to the evolution of Eternal Forest and Faia Brava? Another important question is how younger generations will interact with this place, and how they might become stewards and guardians not only of this specific area, but of the wider surrounding landscape, which requires long-term care and attention.

The idea for the design of the Seed in Faia Brava is a symbolic labyrinth, an infinite loop tracing a four-petal meandering path. It takes you through several turns that mirror the inner journey of the pilgrim, the psyche of the land, and the land’s own long story.

‘The Seed’: Eternal Forest, Faia Brava. Design: Evgenia Emets, Eternal Forest, Fractal Regenerative Technologies © 2025

Trees, bushes and other plants selected for The Seed. Click for larger images.

The Seed holds trees, bushes and plants chosen for their white blossom, but also being native plants from this area. The idea is that as you visit this Eternal Forest in any season, the Seed always presents itself in colour — a variation of white, where every plant is medicine for the land, animals, and each other. Everything in the Seed is designed to attract biodiversity — pollinators, wildlife — and to create a deep experiential space for humans.

I am further developing designs and possible interventions for different locations. At this point, I am increasingly interested in creating concrete, physical projects that are co-created in collaboration with land and communities, rather than focusing solely on visual artworks.

What follows in the coming months is the formalisation of this work through the organisation Eternal Forest, which was registered in December 2025. Over the past year, and continuing into this year, much of the focus has been on developing projects and creating fundable proposals together with communities, landowners, and land stewards.

What is your vision for Nature Connectedness?

When we speak about nature connectedness, I feel it is important to acknowledge that the term itself already implies separation. To say that we need to ‘connect with nature’ suggests that nature is something outside of ourselves. In reality, we are not separate from nature, but we are living the great illusion, as we have disconnected ourselves from the understanding that we are part of it.

We have moved very far away from seeing ourselves as embedded within natural systems. For me, this is why creating physical spaces is so important. These spaces allow us to create conditions where we can return to harmony with a place, learn directly through practice with the land, and be in direct, embodied relationship with a specific landscape over long cycles of time. Only then we can truly embed ourselves into the land, just like an animal does — find out own paths, find our own rhythm, find our own sacred place, find our own home within the land again.

Inviting all: artists, scientists, thinkers

Is there a way for other ClimateCultures members to reflect on this work? Maybe to get involved?

There are several ways for ClimateCultures members, artists, to reflect on the work and to get involved.

First of all, Eternal Forest is held together by a set of questions that I hold personally and that we also hold collectively as an organisation. This is the first year that Eternal Forest is formally operating as an organisation, and while we are building this new structure, we are also opening the space for reflection and dialogue around these questions.

We are inviting artists, scientists, and thinkers to imagine together with us how Eternal Forest can become a movement and a mutually supportive network. How can artists anywhere in the world catalyse and create their own Eternal Forest with their local communities? And how can the Eternal Forest ‘mother tree’ organisation support them over the long term?

Showing Evgenia Emets planting Eternal Forest. Photograph by Marco Piano, Eternal Forest, 2025 — Photograph: Marco Piano, Eternal Forest © 2025

This year in September, we will host an Eternal Forest camp at The Gathering in Portugal, a gathering for regenerative culture. I warmly invite everyone to join. We will release invitations in March, and alongside this, we will be running a series of online conversations. These will be spaces to reflect, contribute, and connect both artistically and philosophically with the community.

In the meantime, people can follow the project by subscribing to our Substack or joining our Telegram channel.

As we establish our first four sanctuaries, we will start opening art residencies.

The success of Eternal Forest depends on people around the world who raise their hand and say, “We have land, with or without forest, that needs protection, and we feel the local community is ready to engage. We want to create a legacy that lasts.”

We are open to collaborating with artists, art foundations, curators, landowners, public institutions, conservation organisations, rewilding initiatives, and tree-planting projects. So I invite everyone who resonates with this work to follow the project, connect with us online for now, and, over time, to become part of this co-creation journey.

Find more

Discover more at Eternal Forest — which includes the short film below on Eternal Forest in Faia Brava 2025 and other videos and art — and on the project’s Substack and Telegram channel.

***

Evgenia — “I use AI to transcode my speech because the way I write a lot of the time is I speak (sometimes walking in the land!). Then I edit my text. Once in a while, I use AI selectively for research — more technical and comparative. All the stories, images and illustrations are original.”

Evgenia Emets

An artist intersecting land-art, sound and visual poetry through experiences, forests, artist books, calligraphy, performance, objects and community engagement, and whose 'Eternal Forest' integrates ecological thinking.

Ancient Woodland — A Celebration of Place

Mary Waltham introduces her and fellow artist Jackie Amies’ joint exhibition on their local ancient woodland. Their art invites our curiosity about these rare, ecologically rich areas, which have been largely untouched by human activity since before 1600.

2,150 words: estimated reading time = 8.5 minutes

I can never remember a time in my life when I did not prefer to be outside rather than inside. Growing up on a farm, in a small village in Dorset, the open spaces outdoors in all seasons were my habitat — woods, fields, streams, and ponds. In the past there was much greater human involvement and familiarity with the natural world and I have been fortunate to experience that when young and now, in later life. It enlarges my sense of the world and gives me simple joy. Living now in Selborne, Hampshire and spending large chunks of time walking means that inevitably I am drawn to ancient woodland. Our cottage is 200 yards as the crow flies from Selborne Hanger, an iconic East Hampshire ancient woodland.

Context: Where is Selborne Hanger?

Excerpts from Selborne Local Landscape Character Assessment (2014) are included here to clarify the position of the site.

“Selborne Hanger lies above the village of Selborne in Hampshire. At its apex the Hanger is one of the highest points in Hampshire, 211 metres (692 ft) above sea level. In the image, contour lines are at 10m intervals. The summit and steep escarpment are covered by woods, dropping abruptly to the fields above Selborne.

"The name Hanger comes from the Old English word Hang’r, meaning a steeply wooded slope.

"From any direction, it is Selborne Hanger that commands first attention; the village being hidden from view, nestling some 85 metres below the ridge of the Chalk Scarp.

"The village and its Hanger are synonymous. When inside the village, the Hanger always feels present.”¹

Gilbert White described this place in 1789:

“The soils of this district are almost as various and diversified as the views and aspects. The high part to the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising three hundred feet above the village; and is divided into a sheep down, the high wood, and a long hanging wood called the Hanger. The covert of this eminence is altogether beech, the most lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs. The down, or sheep-walk, is a pleasing park-like spot, of about one mile by half that space, jutting out on the verge of the hill-country, where it begins to break down into the plains, and commanding a very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, wood-lands, heath, and water.”

— Gilbert White, The Natural History of Selborne (1789)²

In hindsight, I was slow to engage fully and in depth with the significance of ancient woodland that Selborne Hanger and several surrounding areas exuberantly typify. So often when working in London at a demanding role as an executive in fast-paced magazine publishing, I would walk into the Hanger for a break from analysis. Yet always there was this sense of place, including curiosity about all the species that had gone before me. Who were they, what were they doing in the wood and on the Common, and would they recognise it now? I believe so.

“The experience of place and the significance of a sense of place, has never seemed to me simply a matter of sentiment or feeling, but to be something much deeper and more profound.”

— Jeff Malpas, Heidegger and the Thinking of Place (2017)³

In recent years as my art practice developed, I met Jackie Amies, another local artist and keen walker who came to an Open Studio I hosted. In the summer of 2024 we began a conversation about making work for a joint exhibition, and we started to cast around for themes that we could both respond to with enthusiasm.

The result was our exhibition Ancient Woodland: A Celebration of Place at the Allen Gallery in Alton, Hampshire. While each of our art practices continues to develop in appreciation of and response to a variety of habitats close at hand in Hampshire, downlands, wetlands, rivers and chalk streams, for example, why did we choose ancient woodland for this, our first exhibition together?

Showing 'Ancient Woodland: A Celebration of Place' by Mary Waltham & Jackie Amies, an exhibition at Allen Gallery, Alton 2025. Photograph by Seamus Flanagan 2025 — ‘Ancient Woodland: A Celebration of Place’ by Mary Waltham & Jackie Amies, exhibition at Allen Gallery, Alton 2025. Photograph: Seamus Flanagan © 2025

Showing 'Ancient Woodland: A Celebration of Place' by Mary Waltham & Jackie Amies, exhibition at Allen Gallery, Alton 2025. Photograph by Seamus Flanagan 2025 — ‘Ancient Woodland: A Celebration of Place’ by Mary Waltham & Jackie Amies, exhibition at Allen Gallery, Alton 2025. Photograph: Seamus Flanagan © 2025

Ancient woodland — rich fragments of beauty

Despite best efforts to support and encourage these woodlands to thrive, they are consistently under pressure for development and, of course, from continuing assaults by a range of rapidly evolving tree diseases — such as ash dieback — that are further enabled by a warmer climate year-round. We set out to explore and raise awareness of the many dimensions of beauty of ancient woodland from our own perspectives.

Natural England has an inventory of all 52,000 ancient woodland sites across the UK as an online map.⁴ Looking at the whole map it is clear that many, even most, of the sites are small, fragmented pockets.

And yet, according to the Woodland Trust, “Ancient woods are our richest and most complex terrestrial habitat in the UK and they are home to more threatened species than any other. Centuries of undisturbed soils and accumulated decaying wood have created the perfect place for communities of fungi and invertebrates and specialist species of insects, birds and mammals.”⁵

What is ‘ancient woodland’? It is distinctive and often small tracts of woodland that have been largely untouched by humans since before 1600, and now cover just 2.5% of the UK.

Ancient woods are therefore also a continuing record of centuries of interaction and interdependence between man and woodland, often containing remnants of archaeological features such as wood banks, pits and charcoal kilns.

Ancient woodland is an immensely rich and complex area for exploration scientifically, culturally and artistically. Both Jackie and I feel as though we have only just begun!

Our exhibition invites visitors to the Allen Gallery to be curious about these rare and special areas we are fortunate enough to have access to.

We have used traditional media of paint, fine-art printmaking and photography, but with a twist. Paintings made with soil, and new ways to discover trees are among the interpretations. A gentle woodland soundscape accompanies visitors; we wanted people to have an immersive experience once in the gallery.

A sense of place in art

Jackie is exhibiting fine art prints that focus on trees. How many of us can identify trees from their leaves or bark? A series of twelve monoprints of ancient woodland tree leaves entitled ‘Foliate’ refreshes that lost skill.

Showing 'Foliate' series of artworks by Jackie Amies, in exhibition at Allen Gallery. — ‘Foliate’ series, in exhibition, Allen Gallery, Alton. Artworks & photograph: Jackie Amies © 2025

As does ‘Barking’, a series of tree bark etchings over a coloured lino print. The printed backgrounds are an interpretation of the colours found either in the bark, within the wood or the changing leaf colours.

‘Barking – Field Maple’, by Jackie Amies. Photograph: Jackie Amies © 2025

The mystery of ancient woodland is evoked by the series ‘Rooted’, twelve unique monotypes inspired by a year of walking at Ashford Hanger. Each piece draws the viewer into the steep chalk slopes of the East Hampshire Hangers to gnarled wood, undercut roots and animal paths heading off between majestic mature tree trunks; a world rich in an abundance of life.

‘Rooted X’ by Jackie Amies. Photograph: Jackie Amies © 2025

Painting is my primary medium for this exhibition. I have been working with soil as a paint for the six pieces in the series ‘Ground’, using earth and ash as pigment. The pieces reveal and elevate the aesthetic qualities of ancient woodland soil through their intense colours and textures. As alternative portraits of place, the six Selborne Hanger soil paintings allow the site to speak for itself. They directly reflect the history, the climate and the variety of soils that cover the Hanger.

Showing: 'Ground 1' by Mary Waltham, from the series, Soils of local Ancient Woodland — ‘Ground 1’, Mary Waltham: Soils of local Ancient Woodland, 2025.

“... the soil of any one place makes its own peculiar and inevitable sense. It is impossible to contemplate the life of the soil for very long without seeing it as analogous to the life of the spirit.” (Berry, 1977)⁶

“Soil, like fossil fuels took eons to develop and it too cannot be replaced…By giving soil its own agency it is elevated to an aesthetic form.” (Waltham, 2022a)⁷

‘Ground 2’, Mary Waltham: Soils of local Ancient Woodland, 2025.

Soil affects everything that grows in and on it and these woodlands are home to communities of plants that thrive here where the earth is undisturbed and rich in decaying matter. Varied ground flora is a striking feature of ancient woodlands, distinguishing them from recently established woods and plantations. Many of the so-called indicator species of plants in ancient woodland flower in Spring before deciduous trees are leafed out. I am showing eight paintings of such spring flowers using watercolour layers for the series ‘Flos sylva’.

Showing: 'Bluebells', from 'Flos sylva' by Mary Waltham 2025 — ‘Bluebells’, from ‘Flos sylva’ by Mary Waltham. Photograph: Mary Waltham © 2025

My series of small watercolour paintings mounted on cradled birch panel reflects abstract fleeting views experienced while walking the Hangers Way, a long-distance route that runs south from Alton to join the South Downs Way.⁸ This footpath is a good way to encounter ancient woodland, to absorb a sense of the many who have passed here before us, the sound of many species, and if you are fortunate the melody of place. Witnesses all.

Showing: 'Hangers Way', three from the series, watercolour on cradled birch panel, by Mary Waltham 2025. Photograph: Seamus Flanagan © 2025 — ‘Hangers Way’, three from the series, watercolour on cradled birch panel, by Mary Waltham 2025. Photograph: Seamus Flanagan © 2025

Celebrating the local

To help orientate visitors, in the gallery we have a large-scale map of the patches of local ancient woodland we each have frequently visited and worked from, notably Selborne (top of map) and Ashford Hanger bottom).

Showing Patches of local ancient woodland in East Hampshire, from Natural England's online map of Ancient Woodland. — Patches of local ancient woodland in East Hampshire, from Natural England’s online map of Ancient Woodland.

Just outside the gallery, in the small garden, is an installation of a piece of mossy rotting wood with leaf litter. A reference to Neukom Vivarium (2006) from Mark Dion, who says of his work: “So, this isn’t really about the tree, even though the tree is the superstar. It’s really about what’s happening to the tree, about the process of decay…. the wonder of the vast complexity and diversity within a natural system”.⁹

The log is positioned at just the right height for a 7-year-old to look closely and spot all the life teeming on the log through the richness of decay.

A small café at Allen Gallery is the setting for ‘A Celebration of Place’, a series of forty vibrant photographs taken on-site by the artists. These are exquisite reminders of place and a further invitation to find and visit ancient woodland, and to really look.

Showing 'A celebration of place', forty pieces installed in the cafe at the Allen gallery. Photograph by Seamus Flanagan 2025 — ‘A celebration of place’, forty pieces installed in the cafe at the Allen gallery. Photograph: Seamus Flanagan © 2025

Our work on ancient woodland is anchored and guided by generous expert advice from two lifelong landscape professionals who have worked extensively in stewardship and management roles in these woodlands. Chris Webb and David Ball have been in on this exploration of place by me and Jackie from the beginning, providing both of us with essential knowledge, their experience, and facts that have enabled us to feel confident about the truths we present. Any errors of interpretation are entirely our own.

We hope that one outcome from our show is increased understanding of the importance of rare and special ancient woodland.

Responses from visitors have been positive and encouraging – always a plus:

“What an inspiring celebration of place. I have learnt to look at a familiar landscape in an entirely new way”

“A beautiful exhibition to stumble upon. A highlight of my trip to this gorgeous county”

“We loved the birch panel artwork and the moody monoprints. We also enjoyed hearing the birdsong in the gallery as we enjoyed the art. Thank you.”

“Love the birdsong! Inspiring works – love the way the soils are ageing, and the ‘Hangers Way’ watercolour works are enchanting. Thank you.”

Mary’s references:

Selborne Local Landscape Character Assessment (2014)
Gilbert White (1789) The Natural History of Selborne (2006 Penguin Classics edition, edited by Richard Mabey.)
Jeff Malpas (2017) Heidegger and the Thinking of Place: Explorations in the Topology of Being (The MIT Press).
Natural England, Ancient Woodland (England) online map.
Woodland Trust, ancient woodland as one of the many woodland and related habitats across the UK.
Wendell Berry (1977) The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture (Counterpoint).
Mary Waltham (2022a) Case Study: Daro Montag and This Earth. Unpublished.
The Hangers Way, Hampshire.
In this Art 21 interview, “Neukom Vivarium”, Mark Dion discusses his 2006 installation.

Find more

Mary and Jackie’s exhibition Ancient Woodland: A Celebration of Place is on view at the Allen Gallery in Alton, Hampshire until 20th September 2025. There is a free event, Why Ancient Woodland? In Conversation with the Artists, on Saturday 13th September (limited spaces: booking essential).

Mary Waltham

An artist whose work reflects a powerful interest in and curiosity about expressing the fragility of our environment through the eyes of both scientist and artist ...

Anthropocene Naturecultures: Where are the Boundaries?

Geographer Martin Mahony introduces our new selection of student contributions to our Museum of the Anthropocene, asking important questions about the meaning of ‘natural’ and ‘cultural’, the politics of drawing boundaries and the relations that cut across them.

1,770 words: estimated reading time = 7 minutes

It’s a great pleasure to open the loading dock again and install six more exhibits in our online Museum of the Anthropocene. These have been selected from the 30 or so which formed part of this year’s pop-up museum at UEA, as part of our ‘Human Geography in the Anthropocene’ module.

This year we had many excellent submissions which dealt with the relations between human and nonhuman beings, perhaps inspired by our close engagement with Anna Tsing and colleagues’ Feral Atlas. While last year our subset of submissions dealt with questions of “who owns what”, “how has that changed over time?”, and “what even is ownership anyway?”, our six entries this year each in their own way explore vital questions about the meaning of the ‘natural’ and the ‘cultural’, and crucially about the politics of drawing boundaries between those two spheres.

Drawing boundaries, severing connections

The notion of naturecultures, developed by thinkers like Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour, emphasises the primacy of “relatings over related beings”. As a theory of relationality, it holds that things are defined less by their individual essences and more by their relations with other entities. Nonetheless, across those relations, we are always drawing boundaries, putting things into categories, and severing connections – both materially and philosophically.

Enquiring into naturecultures involves both recognising the endurance of those relations, and attending to the process of “coming into being of bounded subjects, objects and domains such as the natural and the cultural”. How are these domains constructed, and how are different subjects and objects allocated to them? Iris van der Tuin prompts us to study “how, where and for whom boundaries are drawn”.^[1]

We can read the history of the Anthropocene as being a process of drawing boundaries and severing connections — of declaring ‘nature’ to be fundamentally separate from humanity and human culture, and thereby positioning it not as a bundle of relations which holds and sustains us all, but as a pool of resources to be exploited and put to work. As historians and geographers like Jason W. Moore and Kathryn Yusoff have reminded us, this philosophical category of ‘nature’, as it emerged in Early Modern Europe, was made to include many parts of humanity as well, with hierarchies of race and gender constructed and used to justify institutions like chattel slavery and patriarchal capitalism.

Does the heralding of the ‘Anthropocene’ represent the final triumph of such boundary-making and hierarchy-constructing? Or does it represent the end of the illusion of such boundaries? That’s not just a philosophical question, but arguably also the crux of the collective choices ‘we’ need to make to steer a course through the Anthropocene.

For naturecultures thinkers, the heralding of the Anthropocene shows just how illusory any nature-culture boundary has always been. We can no longer ignore our entanglements and relations, and indeed the key to dealing with the fall-out of modernity’s pretensions of human separateness from nature is precisely to re-orient our politics and ethics towards care for those relations.

Navigating naturecultures

Our six contributions this year show a range of ways in which we can grapple with these indeterminate nature-culture distinctions, their troubled histories, and their yet-to-be-determined futures.

Kaya Lawes examines a critter with a long history of living closely with humans, of being a key part of some of our most cherished institutions (most notably science), but of also being despised by many of its human neighbours — the rat. She traces the history of the assumed relationships between rats and pestilence, between rats and urban change and inequality, and the more loving relationships that still flourish between some humans and some rats. The contradictions of the intertwined history of rats and people tell us a great deal, Kaya contends, about wider human-nonhuman relationships in the Anthropocene.

Another member of the rodent family is equally evocative of shifting human-wildlife relations. Ciaran Shaffrey recounts the history of the beaver as a species almost lost in Europe to land drainage and enclosure, pursued across North America for its fur by early colonisers — often in the service of emerging fashion trend-setters — and now sitting at the heart of heated debates about ‘re-wilding’ and finding ‘natural solutions’ to habitat degradation and flood management. With both official and guerilla beaver re-introductions gathering pace, are we trying to turn back the clock to a primordial past, or are we seeing the emergence of a new kind of collaborative world-making which cuts across boundaries of species and nature/culture?

Jaz Evans takes us into the virtual sphere, where the slogan “Gotta catch ‘em all!” became synonymous with the cultural phenomenon of Pokémon. But while the slogan might evoke histories of exploration, hunting and accumulation, Jaz shows us how Pokémon was born of grief for the depleted ecologies of Japan, with the creator of the game keen to give children a new means of experiencing “the joy of searching, finding, and collecting”. New augmented-reality versions of the game have brought players back outside, and hopes have been expressed that it could be a new way to reconnect people with the outdoors and even, through its own fantastical naturecultures, to foster interest in conservation.

Amy Patterson traces another story of the natural and the synthetic through her recounting of the complex place of wool in systems of production and trade. Wool, we tend to forget, was central to the early stirrings of the industrial revolution, as well as being a key motivator for the privatisation and enclosure of huge swathes of agricultural land. Amy points to the paradoxical place of wool in contemporary economies — as a raw material it can be worth too little for farmers to bother transporting it to markets; at the same time, it is marketed as a luxury fabric, a cut above its synthetic pretenders. However, a revival of interest in wool is underway, uniting crofters and crafters in building a new kind of garment economy.

This story of shifting value and values has surprising resonances with Lauren Jacquemard’s piece on Taranaki Maunga, a mountain on the North Island of Aoteroa New Zealand. Sacred to Māori tribes of the region, the mountain was nonetheless claimed by the British crown in 1865. The slopes were stripped of many of their ‘natural resources’, eventually leading to efforts at conservation. Nonetheless, this was a form of conservation that enacted an abrupt “division between the human world and the natural world”, thus severing the cultural and spiritual connections of local Indigenous communities to the mountain. Nonetheless, Taranaki Maunga has recently been granted the legal rights of a person. The mountain is now legally considered a living being, and Māori have the authority to speak on its behalf. It has become iconic of a growing, global ‘rights of nature’ movement which seeks to undo the legal and philosophical structures that, for several hundred years now, have calved the ‘human’ off from the ‘natural’, with all the consequences we can now see before us.

All of which brings us, lastly, to the figure of the witch, and to Georgina Renny’s discussion of the history of gendered persecution and more recent revivals of witchcraft as an ecological practice. When early capitalism was busy dividing the world into ‘nature’ and ‘culture’, and ‘productive men’ and ‘domestic women’, the figure of the witch straddled these boundaries in newly problematic ways. Cue the early modern witch-hunts which spread across Europe and North America as those regions were being re-made both by the social transformations of early capitalism and by the environmental trials of the ‘Little Ice Age’. Georgina points to the revival of interest in witchcraft as an example of new feminist, anti-capitalist and anti-colonial environmentalisms, which seek to trouble modernity’s philosophical boundaries anew and to cultivate new means of relating across natural-cultural boundaries.

A better Anthropocene?

Together, we hope these pieces prompt reflection on the importance of paying attention to boundaries, boundary-drawings, and to the relations that cut across. Despite the best boundary-drawing efforts of various villains of the Anthropocene story, these contributions to the Museum of the Anthropocene show that boundaries are always porous, and are spaces of connection and movement as much as they are things that hold us in/back/apart.^[2] Recognising and cultivating these entities and relations that cut across philosophical, political and material boundaries may be the very thing that can help us cultivate a better Anthropocene.

Find more

[1] Iris van der Tuin, 2018, ‘Naturecultures’, in Braidotti, R. and Hlavajova, M. eds. Posthuman Glossary. London: Bloomsbury, p. 269.

[2] Thanks to Mark Goldthorpe for this wonderful phrasing.

The Museum of the Anthropocene forms the centrepiece of Martin’s third-year undergraduate course ‘Human Geography in the Anthropocene’, which he’s been running at the University of East Anglia since 2018. The Museum is built collaboratively each year, with each student selecting an object that they think is particularly eloquent of the historical, political and cultural processes that have led us into the Anthropocene, or which helps us imagine a world beyond the Anthropocene. The Museum is staged around two-thirds of the way through the 12-week course, before students then complete a longer essay on their chosen object.

Step Inside the Museum to view all six of the new objects submitted to the Museum of the Anthropocene this year — as well as 18 contributions from previous students on the course. The main Museum of the Anthropocene page provides introductory reflections and is where we bring together Martin’s annual posts – see below. And there’s also our Anthropocene Glossary, where we offer brief explorations of some of the terms that appear in our Museum entries — such as Coloniality, the Columbian Exchange, the Great Acceleration, Technofossils, the Technosphere and the Tragedy of the Commons.

Martin mentions Feral Atlas: The More-Than-Human Anthropocene, a site curated by Anna L. Tsing, Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena and Feifei Zhou to explore the ecological worlds created when nonhuman entities become tangled up with human infrastructure projects.

Martin’s previous posts in our Museum of the Anthropocene series are:

Object-based Learning in the Anthropocene: exploring the material and intellectual challenges of thinking about human-environment relationships in our new planetary era (our 2022 selection).
Centrifugal Stories in the Anthropocene: how our Museum of the Anthropocene stories resist casting all of humanity together as progenitors of our new planetary age (our 2023 selection).
Objects, Ownership and the Politics of the Anthropocene: objects that suggest ‘ownership’ as a theme in narratives of this age and expand this notion in a startling view from beyond earthbound perspectives (our 2024 selection).

Martin Mahony

A human geographer interested in the politics of the Anthropocene, historical development of environmental sciences and technologies, and how futures are imagined, constructed, represented and contested.