Trees and Woodland of Exmoor
13 - 28 November 2021
Lanacre Barn
Somerset
Environmental campaigners believe that the majority of the population feel unconnected to nature and that there is no simple solution to this problem. We have become separated from our primordial roots and our once instinctive reliance on the cycle of life of our native flora and fauna. Many of us do not see ourselves as part of nature and so we do not understand or even care that we depend on the health of the natural world for our survival.
It is recognised that doom and gloom reports of wild-life extinction and the destruction of vital environments can have the opposite effect to that intended. We readily accept a depleted state of nature as a baseline that continues to creep; biodiversity is slipping away without being noticed. We refuse to accept or digest the evidence and we bury our heads in the sand.
There is a consensus however that fostering some kind of personal connection to nature is vital in order to awaken and mobilise a largely urban population to take action, and that this could include spirituality and the arts as well as science. The project will draw directly on this premise.
The Arborealists have visited specific tree and woodland sites on Exmoor and Dartmoor, as advised by Exmoor and Dartmoor National Park Authorities, in different seasons and have made work for a specific exhibitions of which this is the second, focusing specifically on Exmoor on this occasion.
Arborealists exhibiting : Tim Craven, Sebastian Chance, Angela Rumble, Claire Cansick, Alex Egan, Paul Newman, Philippa Beale, Jo Minoprio, Blaze Cyan, Richard Bavin, Buckmaster/French, Ann Blockley, Annabel Cullen, Fiona McIntyre, Stella Carr, Jacqui Wedlake-Hatton, Peter Ursem, Robert Brooks, Gary Cook, John Blandy.