Dartmoor Clayscapes
13 June - 6 July 2025
Empathic Journeys through Clay
Curated by Vashti Cassinelli
Dartmoor Clayscapes: Empathic Journeys through Clay is a programme of arts featuring Iman Datoo, Arabel Lebrusan and Florence Peake that engages with the materiality of clay ‘kinaesthetically’ or through tactile learning. The programme, held at Southcombe Barn, Widecombe-in-the-Moor, comprises workshops, interactive performance and film to reflect on contemporary issues such as migration and ecological crisis, supporting the development of empathic responses to both human and more-than-human forms of life.
Like the Cornubian granite batholith that forms much of the peninsula of South West England, Dartmoor’s clay landscape has evolved over millennia by a process of attrition and sedimentation. Clay, therefore, can be seen as a geological manifestation of the planet’s deep-time history. Dartmoor Clayscapes explores continuums of space and time using this wider lens on the material as a framework for reflecting on contemporary socio-political questions.
‘Through interaction with clay the programme reflects on deep histories of Dartmoor whilst simultaneously using the materiality of clay to engage people kinaesthetically with land and with human and more than human experiences, reflecting upon global concerns to re-imagine more sustainable and empathic futures’. Vashti Cassinelli
HomeLAND, realised by Arabel Lebrusan, forms the programme’s central project. Influenced by eco-feminist and socio-historical methodologies, Lebrusan’s work often takes the form of site specific sculptures and interventions that question existing hierarchies and power dynamics. Her latest body of work is concerned with ecological grief in response to extraction and commodification of natural landscapes. For HomeLAND, Lebrusan utilises clay gathered from the Bovey Basin and works with local communities – including young people and refugees – to hold conversations around land and belonging. A series of free drop-in workshops led by Lebrusan alongside ceramicist and educator Kate Lyons Miller will be held in the studio, coinciding with the open gardens at Southcombe. During these sessions, the public are invited to join the artists in sculpting migratory swallows using local clay. The ceramic swallows will form part of the sculpture which will be on view from 4 July in Southcombe Gardens.
Further Information
With a focus on landscapes fundamentally altered by human interaction, such as former clay and mining pits, artist Iman Datoo uses film to re-imagine these depleted ecosystems as spaces for healing, resistance and encounter. Datoo hopes that her research may encourage further dialogue and collaboration between those working with soil ecologies in the South West. Her work challenges the separation between ‘natural’ and ‘human-made’, most importantly seeking to emphasise and restore the land’s agency beyond its material value for human consumption. A podcast episode will also form part of her work. Datoo’s film and podcast episode will be available to watch and listen to in the gallery throughout the programme.
Combining performance and visual arts practices, Florence Peake’s work explores forms of reciprocal relationality, using touch as an access point to receive and communicate information that sits outside of the patriarchal structure of visual and verbal language. During her residency at Southcombe Barn, Peake will perform her interactive piece Voicings. Through local ball clay, the idea of collective agency is evoked as a way to access and articulate questions of personal, group and global concern.
The programme has been created in collaboration with Refugee Support Devon and local ceramicist Kate Lyons Miller. Local ball clay has kindly been donated by Imery’s. It will open in time for the start of National Refugee Week 16 June and will feature clay sessions alongside open garden dates at Southcombe Barn.
How To Book
Location: Southcombe Barn, TQ13 7TU
13 June – 6 July 2025
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