Practising Landscape was a practice-led, action-research project undertaken by 10 members of the Reading Landscape Research Group, 1-7 November 2015.
Beginning in Glasgow, the journey passed through the Cairngorms, to Abderdeen, Helmsdale and on to Orkney. The choice of route being, firstly, determined through an extensive mapping exercise based on the Reading Landscape research group members sharing knowledge and divergent research-practice interests in specific sites; and, secondly, for its productive connections to an extended network of artists, anthropologists, curators working cross disciplines within specific locations en route.
57.1836° N, 3.6711° W
A guided walk with artist Lesley Punton, Ryvoan Pass.
Accompanied by The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd and Landscape or Weather-World? by Tim Ingold.
Voices: Lesley Punton, Sue Brind and Justin Carter.
The project’s methodology incorporated subject specialist-led seminars with external collaborators, discursive workshops, site visits, production of visual materials, photography, documentation and reflexive curation. Related to the Research Group’s pre-set key themes, GSA project participants led individual seminars and dialogues, according to their own areas of research expertise at various stages of the journey (although all were active participants at all times), addressing the following questions:
-How do contemporary art practices engage with (and expand) the theme of Landscape and embodiment?
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Practicing Landscape Research Journey Day 3: Tuesday 3 November, 2015
Landscape or Weather-World?
On location seminar with Professor Tim Infold, Chair of Social Anthropology, University of Aberdeen.
-How can such practices work within the contested terms ‘identity and remoteness’ in relation to specific locations?
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Questions of ‘Northness’
Subtitles created from a conversation between Practising Landscape Artists
with Timespan’s Curator Frances Davis and Archive Development Manager Jo Clements.
-What is the role of contemporary art in relation to Ecology and sustainability within the Northern Hemisphere?
-Which practical and creative frameworks are needed to develop and sustain interdisciplinary relationships between artists and other experts?
-How can a Reflexive curatorial process facilitate and help disseminate a mapping of the research journey?
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Andrew Parkinson, Curator of Pier Arts Centre in Stromness, Orkney, discusses the significance of surrounding location, history of the building – the backdrop for its important art collection.
-What cross-disciplinary practice-led methodologies might emerge in response to Landscape and physical layering of history?
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Practicing Landscape Research Journey, Day 6: Friday 6 November 2015.
Seminar with Professor Jane Downes, Archaeologist, and Anne Bevan, Artist,
University of the Highlands and Islands at the Ring of Brodgar, Orkney.
A remembered account, written later the same day.
TOP IMAGE: Sue Brind, 2015
Reading Landscape 
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