Exploring Strange Natures
We're delighted to share some of the entries in our 'Strange Natures' season, with more to come in the next few weeks.
Strange Natures - artworks, stories and more
Our call for creative contributions to the theme of Strange Natures resulted in some wonderful ideas and responses.
Artworks, short stories, experimental films and photo essays explore ideas and feelings about crisis, alienation, strangeness, histories and possibilities across different places and times.
The series will continue for the next few weeks, but here are some of the entries published so far. Explore the original call for Strange Natures contributions to find out about the background for this call, and browse the collection.
Explore the entries
An evocative series of drawings by Marion Bessol depict a transformative encounter with a mysterious entity.
Michael Reeks’ short story takes a journey down into the deep heart of a forest.
Weird seas of the climate crisis: birds as eerie revelation
In this photo essay, closely observing strange patterns in bird behaviour, Andrew Whitehouse finds hints of the unsettled climate.
The haunted floodplains of San Felipe
A series of artworks by Jorge Losoya visualise how a community is haunted by past and future floods.
Francis Gene-Rowe’s zine assembles poetry, visual artwork and reflective writing to explore the self, time, stories and nature.
Volatile ecologies and shifting islands
A photo story by Sampurna Das about the shifting river islands of eastern India.
A short story by Sara Stoudt about longing and creativity from the depths of the ocean.
Ceri Nicholls’ short film conjures up the alienation and disconnection of suburban life, and people’s strange relationships with the natural world.
Podcast episodes
Two recent episodes on the Future Natures podcast explore strangeness, haunting and contested histories of places.
Forgotten places and the field of memory
Cansu Sönmez talks to us about her research in Turkey and Italy on people’s responses to large infrastructure developments like dams and railways, that disrupt their lives and the spaces where they live.
Folk horror and English commons
Andy Thatcher discusses how he uses film to appreciate English commons, and the uses of folk horror, the ‘weird’ and the ‘eerie’ in exploring contested histories.
Follow the Future Natures podcast
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Join the network
Future Natures aims to support a network that includes diverse communities of researchers, commoners, and commoning-aligned artists, writers, makers and others.
Our networking space aims to provide ways for people to connect across borders, places and experiences. The space includes a discussion forum and ways to share information or ideas with other people in the network.