When the Earth Holds Us Quietly

About

When the earth holds us quietly, what can we learn? This exhibition explores ecological reconnection and regeneration through art, treating the earth as a living witness. Demonstrating intention and care using natural, foraged, and found materials, the artworks capture how the earth co-exists with human methods of expression. Each work is only possible through the artists' presence with their materials and the environments that they inhabit.

These practices are materially rooted in place, but ask bigger questions about belonging, climate instability, systems of value, non-heteronormativity, the more-than-human, colonialism, and sensorial engagement. When The Earth Holds Us Quietly acts as a place of rest, an escape from life above ground, and a reminder of how earth, memory and devotion are woven together.

Artists:

Robyn Bamford's practice emerges from an instinctive draw towards nature, gravitating towards the essence of calm, serenity, and earthiness that landscapes exude
through sound. Based at her home in East Dorset, Robyn's work combines ceramics and sound-work to produce meditations on the boundaries between body and landscape.

Ashanti Hare is a Devon-based multidisciplinary artist and spiritual practitioner originally from South London. Ashanti explores their spiritual being through performance and traditional craft practices informed by British and Global Majority folklore, occult practices, and history, using their own body as a conduit between the human and the more-than-human.

Emma Saffy Wilson is a Cornwall-based artist whose practice is deeply rooted in primal materials like dirt, clay and discarded objects. She explores themes of growth, decay, and the inherent beauty in imperfection to urge reconnection with the essence of our material world.

Ella Yolande is a visual artist working across video, sculpture and textiles. Her work explores methods of speculative science and field-working, including thinking through the figure of lichen and specific sites on Dartmoor.

Curated by Indie Hansford, Theadora Perignon and Laial Ross.

When the Earth Holds Us Quietly is presented as part of the University of Exeter's MA Curation programme, REWORLDING.