Zillah Bowes Art Print

From the series Open Hill, currently on exhibition at MAC.  

Open Hill by Zillah Bowes is set in the upland landscapes of the Elan and Claerwen Valleys in Mid Wales with a tenant community of farmers, some of whom still work on horseback using historic techniques. The landscape has been impacted over centuries by open hill sheep farming - grazing across open uplands - as well as flooded to create reservoirs to supply water for Birmingham in England. They now also face an uncertain future shaped by agricultural policy change, long-term biodiversity loss and climate-driven ecological stress. The project explores the community at work as well as peat degradation, exposed carbon and wildfire impact, restoration actions by land managers, volunteers and farmers. Using the panoramic form, it aims to place human presence within the landscape in parity with the more-than-human, exploring the ecological relationship between people and land. Zillah Bowes is a filmmaker and multi disciplinary artist with a practice in lens-based media, poetry, installation and sculpture. Her practice explores the relationship between the individual and the natural environment. She says, ‘In this project, I seem to often be asking myself how to capture the delicateness of this landscape – its damage, its beauty and its holding of community.’