The Visual Arts and Environmental Regeneration in Britain

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue examines how the visual arts in Britain employ and engage with environmentally restorative practices, rewilding, nature conservation and sustainable food production. Britain is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world (Burns et al. 2023) and in 2022 the British Government committed to the COP15 “30by30” target, which aims to “protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030” (DEFRA 2024). This area includes existing conservation areas, but also rural and urban land that is currently devoted to other uses. A major use is food production, and pre- and post-Brexit agricultural subsidies have included increasingly rigorous environmental obligations.

The visual arts in Britain have long been entwined with pressing environmental discourses, but they have also established cultural narratives about the place, role and value of nature, what we expect “natural” spaces to look like, and the socio-economic realities of those spaces. These narratives, expectations and realities have been shaped by the specificities of Britain’s agrarian, industrial and green revolutions, and class and colonial histories, and are further inflected by issues of human and non-human equity, democratic access, and the strategies of conversation itself in a neoliberal economy.

The visual arts are invaluable for propositioning, contextualising and communicating change and investigating its potential and paradoxes. At this time of environmental transition, which is at once necessary, tentative and contested, this Special Issue examines how the visual arts (art, photography, film, digital media, performance) can explore the transition but also interrogate and challenge embedded assumptions. As such, it invites (but is not limited to) contributions examining the following:

• How the visual arts implement, support or mediate rewilding, environmentally restorative and/or conservation initiatives and spaces of threatened biodiversity;
• How the visual arts engage with regenerative farming and food production in rural, urban and peri-urban spaces;
• How the environmental visual arts engage with inter-disciplinary expertise, stakeholders or policy makers;
• The role of educational and cultural institutions in supporting environmental arts practice;
• Ideas regarding common land and land ownership;
• Historic precursors that might illuminate the dialogue around regenerative environmental arts;
• How the environmental arts engage with the relationship between the arts and/or conservation and capitalism.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editors (email) or to the Arts editorial office (arts@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

References:

Burns, F et al. (2023) State of Nature 2023. The State of Nature partnership, available at www.stateofnature.org.uk

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2024) “30by30 on land in England: confirmed criteria and next steps” (policy paper 29/10/2024), available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criteria-for-30by30-on-land-in-england/30by30-on-land-in-england-confirmed-criteria-and-next-steps

Dr. Rupert Ashmore
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Arts is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• environmental arts
• farming
• food production
• communities
• rural economies
• arts research
• film and photography