2021 - Ongoing
Forest Play Lab is a collaboration between myself and Artist / Researcher Michael Tan.
We met in early 2021 during a training course to become Shinrin Yoku (forest bathing) leaders - and together we have continued to explore the potential of artmaking within natural environments - considering themes of care, play, healing and wellbeing.
This project centres both process and production - the process we are developing utilises ‘hiding’ as a form of making photographic images. During walks in the Peak District, Northern England, we take it in turns to identify places we would like to respond to. One artist then ‘hides’ whilst the other ‘seeks’.
Both hiding and seeking provide moments of stillness and intimacy with nature - offering a closer connection with the earth and surroundings - utilising the practice of Shinrin Yoku in an artistic act.
The resulting photographic images are a documentation of this process which also invite the viewer to share in these moments of joy whilst also contemplating their own relationship with nature.
Photographs from this series were exhibited in the Ride Your Pony exhibition, Abingdon Studios, Blackpool, UK between October - November 2021.