Soft Estate, the title of which derives from the Highways Agency term used to describe the natural habitats that have evolved along motorways and trunk roads, looks at how these borders and marginal spaces offer a refuge for wildlife and a modern form of wilderness in the midst of intense urbanisation and agrochemical farming.
Artist and academic Edward Chell investigates these contemporary motorway landscapes, linking them to 18th century ideas of the Picturesque and exploring the interface between history, ecology, roads and travel through a series of new works including an installation of 60 silhouette paintings of motorway plant life.
Launched in conjunction with the exhibition, Soft Estate the publication features a number of photographs and paintings shown in the exhibition, as well as essays by the artists, the Bluecoat's curator and the environmental writer and broadcaster Richard Mabey.
Other artists who interrogate themes of 'edgelands' - those familiar yet ignored spaces that are neither city nor countryside - exhibit alongside and in conversation with Chell. Their works present juxtapositions commonly experienced in edgelands, such as beauty and pollution, wilderness and human agency.
Chell said: "While 18th Century tourists travelled to areas such as the Lake District to capture images of wild places, in today's countryside uncontrolled wilderness only springs up in the margins of our transport networks and the semi-derelict grid plans of industrialised corridors. These soft estates invite a new kind of tourist, new ways of looking and new forms of visual representation."
The Bluecoat's Exhibitions Curator Sara-Jayne Parsons said:"When Edward approached us with the idea for a show we saw the opportunity to make a bigger exhibition encompass his solo project but also include the work of a selection of artists working in similar territory. In this way Edward's work acts as a critical centre for a wider discussion about space, place, memory and identity in our contemporary landscape."
