Language, Landscape and the Sublime is a conference and creative
summit set within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in one of the UK’s most spectacular landscapes. This part of the UK contains more protected landscapes than any other, ranging from its sublime
coastline to the dark and brooding beauty of Dartmoor.
The symposium takes place June 29 and 30 at Dartington Hall and in parallel on June 30 at Sharpham House.
‘As the world shrinks’ says keynoter Prof. John Wylie ‘distances are overcome and rendered insignificant, the near and far lose their salience as means of orientation and understanding…Yet, just as this happens, new distances are felt…between us and ‘land’
and ‘nature’ - a sense of separation, alienation and loss which it then becomes imperative - ethically, environmentally - to overcome.’ In his talk, Wylie will posit ‘the distant’ as a hypothetical to help us through this almost circular conundrum and to move
beyond landscape as a metaphor of apartness and alienation.
And so the tone is set for two days of probing, knowledge sharing, discussion and hands-on workshops. Artists and presenters from every continent (except Antarctica) join us to share their thoughts and sift their ideas. In addition to exploring landscape and
language in its most contemporary guises, we also look again the fundamentals of what we have learned to think of as the quintessential ‘English landscape’. We do this through the particular lens of the tricentennial of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, one of
the UK’s seminal landscape architects. For those of us who grew up in England, his design paradigm seems to be ingrained in us almost, it seems, from birth. Our rural idyll is made up of gently sloping open pastures dotted with sheep, the exquisitely-formed
view corridor studded with the occasional mature oak trees and hazy disappearing horizons.
Registration at £165 remains open until the last remaining tickets are sold. These are now relatively few in number, so we would advise you to book sooner rather than later. You can book and find further details of the event at
languagelandscape.info
Richard M Povall PhD
FRSA
artist • researcher • teacher
4 Coleridge House, Chillington, Kingsbridge, Devon TQ7 2JG UK