Education

Art and the Environment

Flow is an exhibition set outdoors on a sequence of ponds. In recent years, many contemporary artists have made works specially for a particular environment: this is what is called today site specific installations. In general, these are 3 dimensional, large scale public artworks and are an artist's response to the specific environment of the exhibition surroundings, which become like the walls of the museum.

This tradition is not exactly new and goes back a long time, from prehistoric cave paintings or stone circles, where people found ways to connect with nature and their environment.

In the 1960s and 70s, artists in the United States and Europe started to move away from painting and experimented with new ways of responding to the environment and its ecology. Rather than paint the landscape, they made sculptures in the land itself, often using natural materials.

Artists such as Robert Smithson, Richard Long, Ian Hamilton Finlay as well as James Turrell whose Skyspace can be visited at nearby Kielder work in this way.