Practising Place – Inhabiting the Landscape: Art, Archaeology and the Performance of Place

Abstract

Practising Place is a programme of public conversations, designed to examine the relationship between art practice and place. Each event is hosted at a different venue in the North of England and explores a specific aspect of place by bringing artists together with people from different backgrounds, who share a common area of interest.

Inhabiting the Landscape explored ways of understanding the landscape through an immersive engagement with it. Drawing on their respective practices of art and landscape archaeology, the speakers (Ian Nesbitt & Ruth Levene in conversation with Bob Johnston) discussed the idea of landscape as the product of human actions, with a focus on traditions of land use, boundaries and authoritative and unofficial forms of mapping. In particular, they examined how activities such as walking and oral history can generate alternative perspectives of landscape, which challenge established narratives and reveal the shifting meanings of a place.