Kurt Jackson

The book documents the Place Project – a collaboration between the visual artist Kurt Jackson and 32 contemporary writers. Jackson invited each writer to choose, and then justify in words a Place in Britain. Then, in an epic series of journeys Jackson visited and worked at each chosen location responding with a series of paintings, drawings and sculptures.

Contributors  and their chosen places include Andy Atkins, Director, Friends of the Earth  (Royal Festival Hall);  Mark Cocker, nature writer (Blackwater Carr, Norfolk); Ian Collins, art critic (Bat Hall, Dorset); Jim Crace, writer (Spaghetti Junction); Helen Dunmore, writer/poet (Paddington station); Michael Eavis, farmer and festival organiser (Worthy Farm, Glastonbury Festival site); Patrick Gale, writer (A30,West Cornwall) Jimmy Goodwin, musician ( Wapley Hill Fort, Herefordshire); Lord John Krebs, ecologist, Oxford University (Wytham Woods); Robert Macfarlane, writer  (Cairngorm);  Philip Gross, poet (Severn Estuary); Richard Mabey, nature writer (Rickmansworth canal);  Steve Marshall, gallery director (Badbury Rings, Wimborne);  Alice Oswald, poet (Scorriton, Dartmoor); Prof Charles Thomas, archaeologist (Tintagel Castle); John Vidal, journalist (The Panorama, Llangollen); Bob Wilson, Director, Greenpeace (River Ouse, Ely).

The project shows not only the diversity of British landscape but more fundamentally will give insights into the concept of Place – the sense of Place, encompassing that collective sense of identity, meaning, longing, nostalgia and attachment within the British psyche.