Exploring land and nature-based projects for Cultures of Care
I missed July’s Cultures of Care Group. I had to cancel because I had covid and had no energy for sharing my reflections on my care projects at the time. I’m better now, luckily, and looking forward to connecting again with a wonderful, supportive and engaged group.
I never really intended my Cultures of Care project to be so much about land-based work, nature connection and outdoor creativity, but I am so pleased that is how it has turned out.
My Cultures of Care film shares some of my nature-based work
For the last year I have been visiting artist with a wonderful community project meeting in a garden. With them I’ve been exploring nature connection, curiosity and care through activities using natural materials. I wanted to explore how slow, creative activities using themes around care and nurturing could engage the participants of the Wellness in Nature group.
I’ve also created a new body of work exploring hearth and home, a sense of belonging and connection to land, and the impact of displacement or removal of people from the land they call home.
Last year I worked with volunteers to gather stories and data about the hedges in their local area of the National Forest and created Blossom & Thorn, a hedgerow homage, in response.
Then there’s Places and Traces, a new project with local people exploring their emotional connections and stories related to Charnwood Forest, including walks, wild workshops and map-making.
And I’m just starting a new residency with another community garden which I am so excited about. I don’t know where that will lead but I am excited to find out.
I’ll be reflecting on all of these projects in Cultures of Care Group on Thursday 15th August at 6-8pm UK time.
Cultures of Care Group is a free online session with a talk, a mini meditation, discussion and time for quiet journaling or making.
Recent posts about land and nature-based work
Memory Maps
What do remember about special places you have visited? What can you remember of your time spent there? What features or experiences stick in your memory? These memory maps of Charnwood Forest were created during my first Places & Traces event at the Outwoods, Loughborough in June. We talked about our different relationships with this…
Front Garden Fragments
At the moment I’ve got a new work on display in my Land Shapes exhibition, including a group of pieces exploring the loss of front gardens from our urban landscape. Land Shapes also includes new work about front gardens by Mandeep Dhadialla, a project with Karen Logan and other land-based work by me, made during…
Land Shapes Exhibition
Land Shapes is a new exhibition in my garden studio in Loughborough, Leicestershire Over the last year, I’ve been working on various projects around landscape, earth, gardens and nature connection through my Cultures of Care project. I’ve also been really fortunate to work with two other artists, Karen Logan and Mandeep Dhadialla on projects about…
Emotional Landscapes
Places & Traces is part of my Cultures of Care project. Part of Cultures of Care is care of nature and landscape, place and belonging. I’ve been working for a year now with a wellness in nature group and wanted to build on what I’ve learned in that residency to create something more focussed on…
Places & Traces of Charnwood Forest
Places & Traces is a creative landscape history project looking at how local people experience and feel about the Charnwood Forest area. Over the next year I’m hosting creative exploratory walks and wild workshops where we will explore what makes this area so special to us personally. I’m collecting community stories and experiences of this…
Lines and Places
Landscape history and artist practice After a hedge-hiatus early this year for my Blossom & Thorn project, I’m back to my previous landscape project. I’m slowly walking all of the paths in a 10 square mile-ish area near my home and looking for interesting things like old boundaries, ancient woodlands, good hedges, ridge and furrow…
Community artist residency
On Monday I joined Peace of Green’s Wellness in Nature group at Belgrave Hall gardens in Leicester. I’m artist in residence with the group over the next year as part of my Cultures of Care project. Once a month I’ll spend a few hours with the group, observing and chatting to people, running activities and…
Ruth Singer 
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