Breithamerkur Glacier.

Wild Land

Out of the imagination of wilderness and the ignorance of indigenous presence came a false dichotomy: a wholly nonhuman nature and a wholly unnatural humanity. The latter was seen as a threat meaning that the former had to be protected as a place apart.


Rebecca Solnit (2001)

Wild Lands speak loudly to us, enticing some people, repelling others. What is it that calls or warns? Distance, inhospitality? It seems to be something more fundamental. Wild Lands remind us of a world that is independent of human consciousness. However much we may corral novelty into what we know, there is always more to be found, not least because the world that is there, before and after humans, has no categories, distinctions or structure. Held within this greater whole, consciousness is a domain with its specific organisations and processes. The greater whole is the very womb of consciousness; its essential and inexhaustibly burgeoning resource. Far from being 'a place apart' Wild Lands lead us back to the only home that consciousness has.

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The American writer Rebecca Solnit (1961- ) is passionate about art, women’s issues and the environment. This passage is from her essay ‘Every Corner is Alive’ (p. 127 in Eliot Porter: The Color of Wilderness) about the work of the environmentalist Eliot Porter (1901-1990) whose photographs demonstrated the power of his art to defend the environment. Iceland’s biggest glacier, Vatnajökull’ (‘Water Glacier’), covers 9% of the country’s land mass, from it flows Breiðamerkurjökull, the glacier seen in the picture entering the sea.

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Saturday 20th
October 2018

Murphy on duty

Details of the
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