This research project focuses on the human-animal encounters on the Isle of May National Nature Reserve, a site designated for the conservation, protection and study of more-than-human life. Known as the ‘Jewel of the Forth’, the island is the breeding site for over 200,000 seasonal migrant birds with 7 species (including the Atlantic Puffin) on the UK red list (endangered). The island is a Category II site of special scientific interest (SSSI) with a rich archaeological record. This practice-led enquiry foregrounds the unique status of the island and mobilises the potential of contemporary fine art practice to meaningfully engage in current discourse around the stewardship of our natural world at a time of climate breakdown.
Central to the research is the question of how contemporary fine art practice (through collage and artist’s film) can ‘capture’ the dynamic entanglements of the human-animal encounters of the Isle of May National Nature Reserve? Subsidiary questions include: what kinds of knowledge are formed through the representation of these encounters, and how do narratives of conservation, redemption and retreat shape our understanding of the more-than-human ‘worlding’ within the reserve?
Ron Broglio, Surface Encounters: Thinking with Animals and Art (2011), Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing et al, Field Guide to the Patchy Anthropocene (2021), Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Vincianne Despret, Living as a Bird (2021), Polity Press, Cambridge.
Reading Landscape 