Land and Soul

Land and Soul Artist Statement 2022:

Land and Soul was created out of the culmination of despair and rage I felt during the Brexit referendum and the onslaught of negative press towards young people’s climate activism. These two topics, prone to sweeping generalisations, made me feel an ardent need to express my deep and often painful love for the land I grew up in. A close love that I carry with me every day of my life.

Brexit was the first major incident in my lifetime that I had a chance to vote on. It was a monumental decision, one which I watched rip my country apart. Around that time there was a constant conversation around Britishness, borders, and national characteristics and identity. Whilst feeling at odds with many of the strong views being shared at the time I knew I cared deeply about the land I was from. I felt worried about and scared for my fellow citizens having their sense of home publicly diminished by debates that seemed at once circular, and abstract. Land seemed the center of all of it but I never saw photos of Britain itself. It seemed the concrete place of Britain was absent from this debate, and so the texture and physical enormity of that place which I loved didn't have a place.

Simultaneously, I saw climate activism populated greatly by young people being diminished in the national press. At the time I couldn’t have predicted the school walkouts, the mass protests, the movement led by children all over the world. But I did feel a great and gnawing rage at the dismissal of my generation's intention as if we were too young to be a part of the world. As if young people didn’t care about the planet, or understand with deep deep grief its fragility. I realised that these spaces which I had inhabited all my life were likely to change dramatically and, probably suddenly. What I was feeling was what we now call ‘climate grief. I wanted to create a record of what was for future generations who may not ever have the chance to see it.

In many ways I am, and this project is a continuation of the lineage of solitary British photographers who spend their days walking and climbing and wading through this small island, Land and Soul is now in it’s the sixth year of shooting. It is my attempt to translate the deeply intimate, tactile spiritual relationship I have with the British landscape.