Radical Landscapes at Tate Liverpool

Tate Liverpool 5 May – 4 September 2022

This design uses Sky, Hedge and Field as a visual language to delineate exhibition spaces, create structures for wall-mounted works and provide a landscape experience for the visitor. These simple terms belie the complex past, present and future of the British landscape as both a natural and manmade environment but moreover as a political condition. Particular reference has been taken from works in show such as Peter Kennard Haywain With Cruise Missiles, Ruth Ewan, Back to the Fields and Yuri Pattison, Sunset Provision.

Hedge suggests both cultivation, enclosure and barrier and takes the form of free-standing walls with visible construction (to suggest the structure of hedgerows or anti-protest barriers), and cutaway sections to provide views at ground and eye level. These are simply made in softwood and mdf and painted to reflect the exhibition thematics. Sky refers to the altering of the atmosphere by climate change and the marking of the sky by contrails. Field relates to food production, inequality and land ownership. Delineating floor-standing and suspended exhibits, audiovisual works, seating and viewpoints. Visitor movement is also designed from a landscape perspective with ‘paths’, ‘journeys’ and ‘viewing points’ generated by the placement of hedges and sky. 

Radical Landscapes is curated by Darren Pih and Laura Bruni
”From rural raves in Castlemorton to anti-nuclear protests at Greenham Common, this exhibition presents a radical view of the British landscape in art. Expanding on landscape art as being limited to paintings of lush green hills, enjoy art that reflects the diversity of the British Landscape and the communities that inhabit it. Radical Landscapes features two new commissions by Davinia-Ann Robinson and Delaine Le Bas. In Rinkeni Pani (Beautiful Water), Le Bas explores her English-Romany heritage to engage with themes of trespass and climate change. Davinia-Ann Robinson’s installation Some Intimacy combines salvaged clay and sound to powerful effect. Experience Ruth Ewan’s Back to the Fields, which brings live plants and trees into the heart of the exhibition. Immerse yourself in Gustav Metzger’s psychedelic installation Liquid Crystal Environment which harnesses the natural energies of heat and light. See over 150 paintings, sculptures, photographs, films by artists including Jeremy Deller, Ingrid Pollard, Tanoa Sasraku, Derek Jarman, Hurvin Anderson, Claude Cahun, Alan Lodge and many more.”

Very grateful thanks to our design and production research assistant: Ness Lafoy

Photos by Stonehouse Photographic and Smout Allen