Free Thinking

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Free Thinking: Climate change, nature and art

Climate change and art

Climate change, nature and art

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Climate change, nature and art

Ingrid Pollard, Julian Perry, Patricia Dominguez, Will Abberley and Eleanor Barraclough.

"O earth, what changes hast thou seen!" Alfred Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam gives Julian Perry the title for his show in Southampton which explores the effects of coastal erosion.

Crumbling cliff edges, exposed tree roots and abandoned wooden structures are some of the images on show in Southampton painted by Julian Perry.  Is this a new kind of landscape art imprinted by our changing climate?

Scholar Will Abberley wants to rethink our understanding of  "nature writing" - he's been reading John Ruskin, WH Hudson, Nan Shepherd, as well as contemporary examples such as Elizabeth-Jane Burnett's The Grassling, Jini Reddy's Wanderland and Mike Parker's On the Red Hill.  

The Chilean artist, Patricia Dominguez, is taking part in a group show, Rooted Beings, at the Wellcome collection. Her work, Vegetal Matrix, draws on indigenous knowledge of plant life and challenges the exploitation of natural resources. The show examines our symbiotic relationship with plants while recognising them as ancient, complex and sensitive beings that enable life on earth

The British artist photographer, Ingrid Pollard's has a retrospective exhibition which includes images which subvert traditional landscape imagery, exploring Britishness and racial difference. In the 1980s, she produced a series of photographs of black people in rural landscapes, entitled Pastoral Interludes. The works challenge the way that English culture always places Black people in urban contexts.  

Eleanor Barraclough hosts the conversation. 


There Rolls the Deep: The Rising Sea Level Paintings by Julian Perry are on show at the Southampton City Art Gallery from 18 Feb 2022 - 4 Jun 2022 alongside images from the gallery's collection by artists including J.M.W. Turner, Albrecht Dürer, Gustave Courbet and William Nicholson.
Rooted Beings runs at the Wellcome Collection in London from 24 March– 29 August 2022
Ingrid Pollard: Carbon Slowly Turning runs at the Milton Keynes Gallery 12 March-29 May
Modern British Nature Writing, 1789-2020: Land Lines (Cambridge UP)  edited by Will Abberley, University of Sussex, Christina Alt, University of St Andrews, Scotland, David Higgins, University of Leeds, Graham Huggan, University of Leeds, Pippa Marland, University of Bristol is out in March 2022.

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Image: Forest Edge 2021 oil on panel photo Julian Perry


You can find Jini Reddy talking to Ian McMillan on the Verb in a programme about walking  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rwmz 
Elizabeth Jane Burnett features in our playlist called Green Thinking talking about Soil, and Wild Swimming and she’s also written an Essay for Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00051sq 
Rebecca Solnit’s most recent book on Roses explored the nature metaphors employed by Orwell and you can hear more about that https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010q0w    
The Green Thinking playlist also features conversations with Pippa Marland and Anita Roy, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Tania Kovats, and composer Erland Cooper.

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