Our World, Our Crisis

New work Continuum created during my year long residency on Little Woolden Moss are now showing as part of this group exhibition.

During the years residency Hill examined how the attention given to the land underfoot informed and expanded thinking and making, walking and pausing, seeing and listening. Time is inscribed in place, and that time allowed Hill to experience the powerful connection to the living world beyond humans. Listening above and below the water, recording the colour of wetland pools and physical movements of the land as the bog breathed.

'An experiment is a kind of conversation with plants' ' I have a question for them but since I don't speak the same language I can't ask them directly… but plants answer questions by the way they live, by their responses to change. You just need to learn how to ask.'

Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweet Grass:

Echoing early records of botanical specimens, cyanotypes are a traditional medium for recording our natural world through the colour Blue.

Hill recorded UV exposures every new and full moon cycle for the entire year, the resulting images revealing not only UV strength but Moss growth, hydrology levels and water temperature.  11 full moon exposures revealed a hidden energy system critical in the control of Co2, and mitigation of global climate change. ‘Continuum’ charts and maps invisible connections through time and chemical exchanges.  It is also a map of Hill’s pandemic year, 11 exposures because for one of the months the Hill family was isolating due to covid.

Climate Change is the greatest challenge our planet has ever faced. As our landscapes, weather and way of life changes with it, we ask questions about how we live and reflect on the passing of time, our changing landscape and our relationship with it. In this exhibition of works selected from printmakers, film makers and textile artists, questions arise at how our places have changed and how we look at our natural world.  

Six artists: Tracy Hill, Andrew Warburton, Liadin Cooke, Sarah Duncan, Jemma Gunning and Clare Carter; who are from across the UK, have been selected for this exhibition as they respond to our changing landscapes and our place in the world through their artistic practice. 

Works include representations of fires in the Amazon, a hand tufted rug which draws attention to the increase of colossal icebergs, some the size of New York, breaking off from Antarctica in ‘calving events’ as a result of climate change; as well as changes to our own UK landscapes such as the threat to our wetlands from urbanisation and perceptions of wetlands as ‘wasted lands’, and the threat to our woodlands from HS2. 

The exhibition is attempting to reduce its own carbon footprint with the use of recycled paper for exhibition information, environmentally friendly exhibition panels and off-setting carbon emissions created to get the works to The Point by planting a new dye garden and reducing energy usage at the West Yorkshire Print Workshop in Mirfield in 2023.

Our World, Our Crisis is a touring exhibition curated by West Yorkshire Print Workshop.