Ecological Blueprints [2024-25]
Ecological Blueprints forms one of four year-long artist commissions for Creatively Connected. This year long project produced by Northern Heartlands is part of Tees-Swale: Naturally Connected, a major natural heritage project that is a collaboration between the North Pennines National Landscape team and the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and is funded by the National Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England.
In search of ‘blueprints’ for nature, Ecological Blueprints explores the many intersecting factors - from climate change to land management practices and the policies that govern them - that influence how Teesdale’s environments are cared for. The starting point for this journey was learning about the Teesdale Assemblage, a collection of rare alpine-arctic and southern European species that are only found in this combination in Teesdale. The ‘Assemblage’ serves as a wider frame for how habitats, lived experiences and ways of nurturing the landscape come together in ways that are unique to Teesdale.
For me, this has been about taking time to stop and to look and listen closer. On this exploratory journey and with my fellow artists, I’ve spent time getting to know Teesdale’s landscape better and taken part in nature recovery and conservation work with the North Pennines National Landscape Farming and Nature team. I've spent time looking at local wildflower seeds and exploring the incredible hidden diversity found within them. I’ve spent time at local archives to explore how the farmed landscape has evolved over time and how these layers of history are embedded within the landscape. And most importantly, I’ve had rich and generous conversations with local farmers, land managers, experts and volunteers invested in nature and nature recovery. The individuals I’ve met - from local farmers and volunteers to members of the Tees-Swale: Naturally Connected project team - carry a real wealth of experience and often very different perspectives on high nature value farming that are deeply entwined with their own relationship to Teesdale’s landscape. While perspectives may differ, what these encounters have revealed in common is a sense of real care and connection to the land - many hands working with the landscape to craft a better future.
In search of ‘blueprints’ for nature, Ecological Blueprints explores the many intersecting factors - from climate change to land management practices and the policies that govern them - that influence how Teesdale’s environments are cared for. The starting point for this journey was learning about the Teesdale Assemblage, a collection of rare alpine-arctic and southern European species that are only found in this combination in Teesdale. The ‘Assemblage’ serves as a wider frame for how habitats, lived experiences and ways of nurturing the landscape come together in ways that are unique to Teesdale.
For me, this has been about taking time to stop and to look and listen closer. On this exploratory journey and with my fellow artists, I’ve spent time getting to know Teesdale’s landscape better and taken part in nature recovery and conservation work with the North Pennines National Landscape Farming and Nature team. I've spent time looking at local wildflower seeds and exploring the incredible hidden diversity found within them. I’ve spent time at local archives to explore how the farmed landscape has evolved over time and how these layers of history are embedded within the landscape. And most importantly, I’ve had rich and generous conversations with local farmers, land managers, experts and volunteers invested in nature and nature recovery. The individuals I’ve met - from local farmers and volunteers to members of the Tees-Swale: Naturally Connected project team - carry a real wealth of experience and often very different perspectives on high nature value farming that are deeply entwined with their own relationship to Teesdale’s landscape. While perspectives may differ, what these encounters have revealed in common is a sense of real care and connection to the land - many hands working with the landscape to craft a better future.
Public Programme
Over summer 2025, the project expanded outwards through a series of participatory workshops, site visits and farm days inviting farmers, land managers, volunteers and local residents interested in farming and nature to come together to reflect on the past, present and future of the farmed landscape in Teesdale.
Welcome Evening
Working with fellow artists Laura Harrington and Azadeh Fatehrad, this welcome evening at the Farmhouse Kitchen at Low Way Farm introduced Creatively Connected to invited farmers, volunteers, botanists, local residents, arts producers and members of the North Pennines National Landscape team over a shared meal. Around the dinner table, guests were invited to share their own connections with and reflections on Teesdale’s landscape.
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Layered Histories
At Raby Archive, we explored the collections of the estate - on whose land many of Upper Teesdale's farmers are tenants - relating to the farmed landscape. We explored the changes and permanence that these records showed and worked together to propose what an archive of farming and nature today would look like.
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Fragile Habitats, Uncertain Futures
With renowned botanist Margaret Bradshaw and Moor House Upper Teesdale Nature Reserve Manager Martin Furness, a guided photography and fieldworking day explored the rare flora on Widdybank Pasture, glacial relics that face increasingly uncertain futures as the climate warms.
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Crafting Futures
Speaking with the voices of Teesdale's more than human residents - from the peat bogs to the river tees - together we explored what we would like the future of Teesdale's landscapes to look like, the ways different species interact and are interdependent and discussed some of the forces that will shape the future of Teesdale's environments.
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Acts of Recovery
To celebrate National Meadows Day, this installation and interactive microscopy workshop brought participants close up with local wildflower seeds. Using hay meadow restoration as a starting point, we thought together about different acts of nature recovery in Teesdale.
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Drivers of Change
Here we thought more deeply about how the landscape would change over time. We used climate modelling tools to think about what Teesdale's landscapes may look like in the future and situated ourselves as agents of change.
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Ecological Blueprints
In our final session, we explored the images, stories and experiences captured across the Ecological Blueprints project and worked together to create a 'blueprint' for nature in the form of a publication. Inspired by the outcome of the earlier Crafting Futures workshop, participants were invited to contribute one value they felt should be centred in a ‘blueprint’ for nature. This sparked a rich and ranging conversation, which formed the basis of the final publication created for the project.
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Creatively Connected Symposium
Taking place at Raby Castle, our final Creatively Connected Symposium offered the opportunity to share the work developed over the past year with farmers, landowners, community members, academics, policy-makers and creative thinkers. Inspired by the gentle and restorative acts of care practiced through volunteer sessions on farms and at the Bowlees Tree and Wildflower Nursery over the past year, my workshop: Layers of the Past | Pockets of the Future invited participants to sow wildflower seeds to grow plants that will be planted out in Teesdale's hay meadows. While doing so, together we explored the 'pockets of the future in the present' that we recognise in their own lives - the good practices, behaviours and organisations, ways of being and doing, that should be nurtured in our ideal visions of the future. Image: Claire Collinson Photography
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Speaking to the programme, in the External Evaluation produced for Creatively Connected, Evaluator Alison Whelan highlights:
‘Matt’s public programming - timed to coincide with events like National Meadows Day - didn’t stand apart from existing efforts; it grew within them, amplifying conservation work and cultivating new pathways for sustained community engagement. The results were striking. The Culture Counts evaluation survey revealed near-perfect scores across all measures: challenge and new thinking (0.89), personal meaning, environmental awareness, and nature connection (all 1.0). Most notably, every participant reported a shift in perspective on both art and the environment. There was universal enjoyment, and a shared sense of contribution. Scientists discovered creative applications of familiar tools, botanists formed new collaborative relationships with land managers, and community members honed techniques for observing and documenting the land. These were not just new skills - they were new ways of seeing. Balancing accessibility with depth, Matt’s adaptive strategies enabled inclusive dialogue without diluting complexity. These tools became bridges, allowing people to engage with the landscape in ways that felt personal and empowering.’
‘Matt’s public programming - timed to coincide with events like National Meadows Day - didn’t stand apart from existing efforts; it grew within them, amplifying conservation work and cultivating new pathways for sustained community engagement. The results were striking. The Culture Counts evaluation survey revealed near-perfect scores across all measures: challenge and new thinking (0.89), personal meaning, environmental awareness, and nature connection (all 1.0). Most notably, every participant reported a shift in perspective on both art and the environment. There was universal enjoyment, and a shared sense of contribution. Scientists discovered creative applications of familiar tools, botanists formed new collaborative relationships with land managers, and community members honed techniques for observing and documenting the land. These were not just new skills - they were new ways of seeing. Balancing accessibility with depth, Matt’s adaptive strategies enabled inclusive dialogue without diluting complexity. These tools became bridges, allowing people to engage with the landscape in ways that felt personal and empowering.’
With thanks to project supporters:
