Dartmoor: A Radical Landscape - photography, film and Land Art

About

'Dartmoor: A Radical Landscape' shows the work of 18 artists and photographers spanning 1969 to 2024. The show chronicles how Dartmoor has enchanted these artists, compelling them to respond to its open spaces, ancient woodland and layered traces of human activity through Land Art, photography and film practices.

Artists showing: Fern Leigh Albert, Jo Bradford, Chris Chapman, John Curno, Robert Darch, Sian Davey, Susan Derges, Robin Friend, Ashish Ghadiali, Alex Hartley, Nancy Holt, Laura Hopes and Katharine Earnshaw, Richard Long, Garry Fabian Miller, James Ravilious, Tanoa Sasraku, David Spero, Nicholas J R White, Marie Yates

Dartmoor exists in the cultural imagination as a place of freedom and wilderness, but it is also a contested landscape and a microcosm of urgent issues facing Britain today. Concerns about the interconnected ecological crisis and climate breakdown, as well as who has access to the land, are explored by artists through collaborations with climate scientists, protestors and other experts. The artworks shown offer new ways of appreciating and understanding Dartmoor's special landscape through time and consider its future.

RAMM has become the custodian of various objects found in, made and inspired by Dartmoor. The exhibition premieres commissions by Devon-based artists Alex Hartley and Ashish Ghadiali. Their research into the museum's collections of historical photography and artefacts prompted their artistic explorations of Dartmoor's deep time and ecology.

Lara Goodband, Contemporary Art Curator said: "With its open spaces, ancient woodland and layered traces of human activity, Dartmoor has long attracted artists, often depicting the landscape as a picturesque rural idyll and is home to a thriving artistic community, whose work is recognised internationally. It is also a contested landscape and a microcosm of urgent issues facing Britain today. The fifty-five years the artwork in the exhibition spans invites us to consider our relationship with the specific landscape of Dartmoor, the changes during that time and what we would like to see and be able to experience in the future. Attracted by a particular presence in the Dartmoor landscape, these artists have used photography to capture their personal and emotional connections to this special place. What we see, in variety, form and approach, are links to the otherworldly and non-human."