Adam Bennett

The enclosing of the commons in the 18th and 19th centuries saw the appropriation of around 22% of land in England by the aristocracy and gentry, reducing the open landscape to lines on a map. In the present day just 3% of land in England remains as registered commons. Enclosures were dubbed an economic necessity, taking no account for the following ecological impact of the ensuing transformation of the land through agricultural improvements. Today, of the 3% of registered common land, 88% carry one of more national statutory conservation designations, of which 57% are registered as sites of special scientific interest, a conservation designation given to places which have rare species of fauna or flora.

Common Ground combines landscape photography with historic artifacts to unpick the traditions of representation that dominate rural space, to offer an insight into the underlying power structures of land ownership in England and provide a vision of some of the most ecologically diverse landscapes remaining. It is through offering context to the construction and degradation of rural space that we can attempt to create new discourses based on ecological awareness, to consider the landscape not only on the traditional bases of the pastoral and picturesque which act as subtle tools aiding such degradation, but as one in which the power that is held over the land is directly connected to the ecology that remains.