The Landscape in Pain: Art for shifting relations with the land

Description

The Landscape in Pain: Art for shifting relations with the land

This presentation was part of the panel which considered how art and social based practices can help young people in the North deal with issues that threaten society, such as climate change, environmental pollution, and contamination from plastics. It began by considering the project Landscape in Pain which addresses the industrial scale extraction of nature for export and profit, specifically wind power in Shetland, as it disrupts our relation to land and impacts cultural heritage and identity.
With this project, I am trying to make visible the extractivist principles and practices which threaten to destabilise communities such as Shetland across the North through industrialisation and exploitation of natural resources in the drive to tackle the climate crisis. There are multiple components in the project which I hope work together in relation to societal issues, conveying ideas, values and visions. There is a web site, I’ve organised a talk, I’m a committee member of Sustainable Shetland. I am working with members of my community from diverse backgrounds and who hold differing positions. Some of us have worked in 2022 and 2023 with the Dutch filmmaker Cato Draiisma to produce a community based participatory film called Winds of Change.

The second part considered how the arts can create impact and achieve societal change by offering imaginative approaches to the complex issues affecting our society and allow us to imagine a different relationship, in which people and land are good for each other (Wall Kimmerer, 2013). Examples are drawn from the project Living in the Landscape (2023) and work by graduates from the MA Degree programme in Art and Social Practice at the Centre for Island Creativity, UHI Shetland.

Period	31 May 2024
Event title	Arctic Congress
Event type	Other
Location	Bodø, NorwayShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International