‘Nature Calling’ - six new landmark national art projects bridging the divide between people and their local natural landscapes to create connection, access, and wellbeing

Nature Calling presents six major artistic projects for six National Landscapes; choose your adventure game trails in Croydon and the Surrey Hills, a new giant for Dorset, a permanent chalk Henge land artwork and social space for Luton and the Chilterns, fleeting billboards in the Lincolnshire Wolds, the captured sounds of the Mendip Hills and Are You Lost? in the Forest of Bowland.

“Landscapes only exist through the lens of people’s perception, that’s why everyone has a stake in these places, protected for the nation. Artists are able to make significant progress and change in the heart of a community, not just promoting access, but supporting people to find belonging, where civic society might take decades.” John Watkins, CEO, National Landscapes Association.

Nature Calling has commissioned artists and writers to work deeply within multiple local communities to increase knowledge and access to nature for more people, to improve wellbeing and inspire a sense of belonging to the countryside on their doorstep. The result is six significant and original artistic responses with a season of events, installations and launches presented between May and October 2025. Nature Calling is delivered by National Landscapes Association, Activate Performing Arts and six local National Landscapes. It is supported by Arts Council England and DEFRA’s Protected Landscapes Partnership.

National Landscapes Association's vision for ‘Nature Calling’ is to encourage and invite new audiences to make a connection with their local natural landscapes when there is a current and pressing need to secure nature’s future. Through contemporary conversations about what landscape means to us today inspired by artists working with communities, National Landscapes Association would like more people to enjoy nature. Partnering with Activate Performing Arts to create ‘Nature Calling’ helps to safeguard nature’s future through enabling a broader sense of place and belonging for more people. 

Six of England’s National Landscapes have commissioned art projects and writers to create impactful artworks that engage different and new people to better understand, enjoy and explore their local natural landscapes in new ways. 

Artists: Becca Gill, David Blandy & Daniel Locke, Chris Howard and Jason Singh, INSTAR (Trish Evans & Nick Humphreys), Matthew Rosier and Rob St. John. Writers: Ayesha Chouglay, Gwyneth Herbert, Lee Nelson, Louisa Adjoa Parker, OneDa, and Still Shady.

Nature Calling follows the Landscapes review findings that national landscapes should be accessible to all and a positive force for the nation’s wellbeing, and the University of Derby’s award-winning ‘Nature Connectedness’ research, showing the quantifiable benefits to wellbeing from connecting with nature. 

John Watkins, Chief Executive, National Landscapes Association, said: “Nature is calling to us. We are aware that many people do not know what a protected landscape is, if they can access it, and how. People feel that landscapes are ‘not for us’, but we know that landscapes do not exist without people. Often, National Landscapes are close to town centres and cover vast areas, some of which is easily accessible, and yet many wouldn't know this. Artists can play a brilliant and ingenious role in communicating that nature and natural spaces are for everyone to play and explore. This large scale and deep reaching series of projects by artists and writers is a way for us to get into communities and encourage them into the landscape to challenge narratives of exclusivity. Through Nature Calling we are informing how landscapes can be accessed and can improve wellbeing through the artist's approach and the brilliant artworks they are making.”

The six landscapes and art projects are:

‘Dawn After Night, Spring after Winter’ Surrey Hills Landscape

Artist David Blandy, with graphic novelist Daniel Locke, worked with the communities of New Addington in Croydon to create free inspirational adventure game trails for exploring their local landscapes. Responding to the Surrey Hills Landscape of Box Hill and Hutchinson's Bank in Croydon, the game trails ‘Dawn After Night, Spring after Winter’ link communities with the sylvan world around them through walking trails or online. With poetry, writing, drawing and game design, the artists have devised an intricate map, an immersive audio-tour and an evocative game publication of local mythologies discovered during their research.

‘Nature’s Anthem – A Journey through the Surrey Hills’ is a new rap created for Nature Calling by Still Shadey, a rapper and songwriter from Croydon. Inspired by conversations with New Addington residents on their experiences of nature and visits to the Surrey Hills, he has crafted a new work with lo-fi beats and atmospheric vocals.

The ‘Consequences’ Giant Dorset National Landscape

Inspired by the enduring mystery of the Cerne Abbas Giant, artistic Becca Gill and her team worked with communities in Yeovil to devise and create a monumental new giant mythical creature for the Dorset National Landscape. Made through fun, collaborative community workshops, this extraordinarily huge Consequences Giant (30 by 40 meters) will be ceremoniously unveiled with music, poetry, and ritual on the ancient hills of Somerset and Dorset in September. The Consequences Giant will visit Yeovil and Corfe Castle, and the unveiling will be available to watch online. 

Louisa Adjoa Parker’s poem ‘This patch of land’ is inspired by the Dorset National Landscape, and will also form part of a composed soundtrack for the ‘Consequences Giant’ artwork.

‘‘Luton Henge’ Chilterns National Landscape

‘Luton Henge’ is a new permanent sculptural chalk Henge and land artwork and social space by award winning artist Matthew Rosier, inspired by the Chilterns National Landscape and ancient earthwork over 4,000 years old at the source of the River Lea in Luton. The sculptures and landworks will be made from chalk, stone, earth and wood using the same local materials used in prehistoric times. Luton Henge acts as a compass, physically marking and celebrating key moments of the year through a series of new landscape features, including eight standing stones made from Totternhoe chalk clunch. Created in collaboration and conversation with Luton’s community, Luton Henge opens in July with a dawn-to-dusk launch festival. 

Lutonian writer and poet Lee Nelson responded to Nature Calling by hosting walks in the Chilterns with Luton residents. These supported him to develop his short poetry collection ‘Sharpenhoe Begins’, inspired by the landscape and heritage.

Are You Lost?’ Forest of Bowland

Are You Lost? evolved through multiple workshops, conversations, walks and events between artist Rob St John and local communities, particularly young people, who live on the fringes of Bowland. Inspired by the Forest of Bowland landscape and its social, ecological and political histories, the final artwork includes films, soundscapes, painted signs and textiles made with textile artist Kate O’Farrell. The installation tours across Bowland to local spaces repurposed for the installation, with a series of free community workshops and activities at each installation location.

Poet and rapper OneDa’s response to Nature Calling was to facilitate hip-hop and spoken word workshops with young people from surrounding areas. From this, she created spoken word poetry, bringing the Forest of Bowland to life in auditory form with a new work, ‘Connections’. 

‘View In, View Out’ - VIVO Mendip National Landscape

‘View In, View Out’ - VIVO is an original sound installation and sound trail by composer, lyricist and performer Gwyneth Herbert, sound artist, beatboxer and DJ Jason Singh, and producer and director of British wildlife documentaries Chris Howard. VIVO tracks through layers of time, soil, stone, stories and roots to hear the stories of ancestors of the caves, the dying song of the ash trees, and the birds of the plateau in the Mendip National Landscape. VIVO gathers, captures, and translates the breadth of the landscape, people and local stories, and weaves them together with the natural sounds and atmospheres from the Mendip Hills. 

Lyricist and performer Gwyneth Herbert’s commissioned work is being created in collaboration and embedded in VIVO.

‘Shelf Life’ Lincolnshire Wolds

Inspired by the Lincolnshire Wolds landscape, ‘Shelf Life’ is a print-based sculptural installation and film by INSTAR artists Trish Evans and Nick Humphreys. Their work is informed by observing where nature has retreated and how fields for farming have expanded, engaging with local farmers and landowners, discovering pressures on rural life, farm life and wildlife. ‘Shelf Life’ is formed of a large-scale billboard artwork touring to locations within the Wolds landscape, a film featuring the artwork billboard on tour, accompanied by the voices of farmers and landowners, and three smaller-scale touring billboards created in collaboration with Lincolnshire teenagers touring to a series of Lincolnshire festivals. 

Writer and poet Ayesha Chouglay has written a four-poem short collection inspired by the Lincolnshire Wolds. Sharing her notebook of observations, explorations, findings, and completed written works with INSTAR has allowed for ‘sparks of inspiration to naturally cultivate between both projects’.

Kate Wood and Bill Gee, Activate Performing Arts, Executive Producers of Nature Calling, said: “After working with the National Landscape Association for the past 10 years, and creating the ‘Arts in the Landscape: Connecting People to Nature Arts Strategy’ with them, it is good to see our recommendations brought to life through ‘Nature Calling’. The exceptional quality of the writers, artists, rappers, composers, and partners involved across the programme is, and will continue to succeed in connecting many new, diverse people to nature and their local green spaces.”

A wider programme of arts activity is taking place in England to accompany Nature Calling. ‘Spokes’ is a series of smaller commissions across 21 of the English National Landscapes with two ‘Super Spokes’ in the Yorkshire Dales and New Forest National Parks. These projects reflect the vision of Nature Calling and give communities a unique experience of their local natural landscape guided by artists and each National Landscapes team from May to October.

For more information on Nature Calling projects, artists, writers and how to join in Nature Calling activities and events, please visit www.naturecalling.org.uk