Reclaiming the ground: Project documentation

Reclaiming the ground is an ongoing project of inquiry supported using public funding by Arts Council England, about how we, particularly as women, navigate spaces, both rural and urban. This blog will document the development of my creative practice through this project, exploring landscapes across the UK and documenting through writing, drawing, photography and film.

Please do share your own experiences in the landscapes and any responses to the work shared here. You can also see images and video from the project on instagram at @reclaiming_the_ground

Women walking

Due to the weather in Glen Coe it was a bit too windy to leave the drone in one spot or to fly too high, so opportunities to also spend time capturing dance were sparse. The aim of this trip out to Glen Coe was to capture the wider landscape so that is what I prioritsed in the weather windows. The result is the below film which focuses more on women walking in the landscape. Obviously this film isn't perfect and I need to work on the transitions as well as some smoother drone

Glen Coe

Glen Coe was on my list of places to visit and do some filming right from the get go. It is such a magickal, majestic and grand place. I knew I wanted to capture the size of a person alongside the huge mountains and really get a juxtaposition between the size of the person and the path and that of the mountain and the wider landscape. I checked the mountain weather forecast and it looked promising, although it turned out to be quite different. It was actually much busier than

The joys of editing

I returned to the forest trail with drone in hand, making sure I was definitely outside of the no-fly zone to try out filming between the beautiful spruces. I also brought me with a lovely green dress that I thought would go well in the wooded environment. I had been thinking about the juxtaposition between women walking in hiking gear, strong boots, trousers, rain jacket, compared with the perhaps more fragile perception of women in the woods, along with an essence of wood n