Art has been largely ignored by environmentalists, but it can play a vital role.
Artists can help inspire a deeper connection to the natural world, and at Derbyshire’s Low Grin Wood, Gordon McLellan is attempting exactly that. Gordon is a shaman and a poet, and uses verse and puppetry to help inspire the local community to find a deeper connection to their woodland.
With Europe’s trees under threat from Ash dieback, this is more important than ever: and Gordon believes that Art can help us find an emotional connection to Nature. He is a facilitator – guiding the community to explore and articulate how they feel about their woodland. It’s about creating the space to allow participants to delve deep and find out what really matters to us about the natural world. Art can bring us to an understanding of this that statistics and cold facts alone never could.
