Saddleworth: Responding to a Landscape
- Submitting institution
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University of Gloucestershire
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 29
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- MAC, Birmingham; Elliott Halls Gallery, Amsterdam
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of first exhibition
- November
- Year of first exhibition
- 2017
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This portfolio is based on a series of 30 large-scale photographs taken by Matthew Murray on Saddleworth Moor from 2012 onwards. A paradox of this location is that it is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and a popular destination for walkers and day-trippers, but retains a dark place in public consciousness for its connections with the Moors Murders. Over the five years of the project, Murray’s engagement with this landscape also became coloured by his own personal grief and loss as he cared for a family member with dementia.
The key research question that emerged from this project was how to sensitise an image of landscape through photography without sensationalising its history. Critical to this was his understanding of the common human experience of personal grief and how this interacts with the relationship that develops with a particular landscape, a methodology he developed through walking and reflection.
The project has so far been exhibited and disseminated as follows: Saddleworth:
• ‘Responding to a Landscape’, MAC, Birmingham, 18 November 2017–21 January 2018, curated by Nicola Shipley, Director at Grain Photography Hub.
• A symposium ran alongside the exhibition and took place on 24 November 2017 at MAC: ‘Responding to a Landscape’, on the evolving relationship between artists and photographers and the landscape.
• ‘Hit the North’, a group exhibition at Manchester Central Library, curated by Greg Hobson, 19 April–30 June 2018.
• ‘Saddleworth: Responding to a Landscape’, 2017, published by Gallery Vassie, Pirate editions.
• ‘Saddleworth: Responding to a Landscape’, Elliott Halls Gallery, Amsterdam, 15 September–3 November 2018.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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