TERRA INCOGNITA: On This Land | In This Land | Of This Land

A meditiative commentary on and contemplation of the conflicted concepts of land ownership and land access or trespass.

Terra Incognita considers the barriers, boundaries and social constructs surrounding and imposed on our access to the land and the frames through which we view the ‘landscape’ as a separate entity to ourselves – viewed as an object, used as a resource, owned as a possession.

The work explores how permitted routes of access, while ostensibly opening up the land to many, in fact entrench this disconnection from the environment – reinforcing the concept of ‘landscape’ as a curated scene to be viewed from afar rather than an environment in which to immerse ourselves and rediscover our symbiotic connection, placing us in conflict with a land we should be attuned to. The concept of trespass – and our wariness to do so – discolours our perception and stewardship of the land, dislocating us from something that we are part of and connected to on a deeper level.

Through a combination of stills, moving imagery, soundscape and performance Terra Incognita explores public rights of way in North Yorkshire, to consider and challenge the socially constructed and accepted restrictions to ‘stick to the trodden path’. Evoking dark fairy tales of Little Red Riding Hood and Greek mythology, the work contemplates our kinship and associations with and memories of the land alongside the new cartography and traces that we leave if we trespass off the right of way: mapping new pathways responding to the contours of the land, unravelling our preconceptions of trespass like Ariadne’s ball of thread – a safety net enabling us to lose ourselves in the landscape while ensuring that we do not remain lost – to find our way to reconnect to, and to reclaim our place in, and part of, the land beyond the curated ‘scape’.