This Land is Our Land: Paper #54: The Kinder Scout Drawings Series

As a starting point, artists’ Stephen Walter and Simon Woolham organised a walk, re-tracing a famous mass trespass to the summit of Kinder Scout in the Peak District. The walk, on 24 April 1932, was a notable act of wilful trespass by ramblers. It was undertaken to highlight the fact that walkers in England and Wales were denied access to areas of open country.

The artists have invited a number of contemporary artists, with a diversity of practices, to re-explore the meaning of place and myth in the act of pilgrimage, whilst mirroring the socio-politic absurdity of today. A number of the artists will re-trace the history of the Kinder Scout walk but this time in the context of an anti-Brexit walk. The walk took place on 29 March 2019, the date the UK was scheduled to leave the EU.

The artists will make work in response and reference to this walk, or another project – inviting an overtly political stance that questions both the effects of leaving the EU and what the term THIS LAND IS OUR LAND signifies today. The exhibition will happen at PAPER in Manchester alongside the alternative exhibition INTER-SECTION at Market Gallery in Huddersfield, forming a conversation between two sites. The exhibition will present notes, drawings, and paper ephemera.

Artists, Stephen Walter and Simon Woolham, have invited a number of other artists to re-explore the meaning of place and myth in the act of pilgrimage, whilst mirroring the socio-politic absurdity of today. A number of the artists will re-trace the history of the mass trespass at Kinder Scout, but in the context of Brexit.