Nature and nation

'Nature and Nation: Vaster than Empires' was a national, touring exhibition, publication and internet project linking schools in the UK and India. Our question was how our activities as artists, as cultural producers, might both be a method for examining the realities of the world we live in, and a strategy for intervening in that world. Artists were asked to examine contested geographic and symbolic territories and explore the representation of nature in relation to colonial histories and national identity. A related publication examined the way nature is culturally constructed, aesthetically represented, and expressed. It covered topics like the colonising aesthetic of the lawn, and the experience of nature as ornament and included images of work exhibited. The schools internet project was devised to link the rarefied field of aesthetic representation and cultural discourse to the lived realities of different communities. The project succeeded in creating an international network of social, theoretical and visual relationships and audience responses.--http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/1101/