Ep.10 – Art, Nature and Community in the Forest of Bowland
In this episode we tune in to a conversation on art, nature and community held as part of the final Bowland installation of Are You Lost? in Gisburn Forest in August 2025.
The discussion is led by Jocelyn Cunningham, director of Lancaster Arts, and features Jenny Rutter, Chief Executive of the British Textile Biennial, Associate Director of Super Slow Way, and Chair of Creative Lancashire, and Anna Taylor, Head of Critical Engagement at In Situ, an arts and community organisation based in East Lancashire.
The trio discuss their work, and wider issues around socially-engaged environmental art, with Rob and a group of people, both from Bowland and its fringes.
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Ep.9 – Singing Bowland with Jules Evans
In this episode, Rob speaks to choir leader and composer Jules Evans at the second installation of Are You Lost? in Dunsop Bridge in August 2025. We hear about Jules' approach to socially-engaged art, and his collaborations with Rob working taking young people out into Bowland to sing together. Jules tells us about his work with a new choir, The Stonechats, who will present new work based on the memories and places mapped across Bowland by hundreds of people at Gisburn Forest on 31st August.
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Ep.8 – Openness, Imagination, Transparency
In this episode, artist Rob St John introduces the year-long community work in and around Bowland which has shaped the Are You Lost? project. He describes how the film, sound and textile installation pieces have been created with local people, alongside artists Kate O'Farrell and Jules Evans.
We then hear the sound work itself, featuring the voices of three local people who attended workshops – Nita Burrows, William Michael Neary and Zainab Maria – narrating texts about the multiple meanings of access in Bowland, assembled from words written in public workshops, field trips, scientific research and historical archives. The narrators reflect on how access to Bowland’s landscapes orbits around openness, imagination and transparency.
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Ep.7 – Storying Bowland
In this episode we meet Jane Routh, a poet and woodland restorationist on the Tatham Fells in Bowland. We talk about native woodland restoration on her land, the histories of enclosure and drove roads in the area, and how living and working in this corner of Bowland has inspired her award-winning poetry. Jane reads her poem ‘One Place’ from her kitchen table looking out over the fells.
We finish by hearing an excerpt from the soundscape in the new Women in Farming exhibition held at Clitheroe Castle this summer. Created in collaboration with Tarja Wilson from the Forest of Bowland National Landscape, the soundscape features stories from six female farmers across Bowland. Their voices are woven with the sounds of the fells, recorded at dawn by Rob, and the farmyard, recorded by young people from Yes Hub in Nelson on farm visits.
Episode image by Tarja Wilson.
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Ep.6 – Farming Bowland
In this episode we visit two farms located in very different landscapes across Bowland. First, the group of young people from Yes Hub in Nelson who made the ‘Pendle’s Hidden Gems’ episode of this podcast visit Northwood Farm, just outside the town, and overlooked by Pendle Hill.
The group meet Philip Marginson, a beef and sheep farmer who regularly runs educational visits to the farm. Saud, Dua, Zaynab and Callum spend time recording the sounds of the farm, and asking Philip questions about farming life here between the town and the hills.
Then we travel to a rural valley in the heart of Bowland to meet Tom and Jackie Entwistle on Lentworth Farm in Abbeystead. Over an entertaining and enlightening chat around their farmhouse kitchen table, Tom and Jackie discuss life farming in a small and tight-knit community.
The Are You Lost? podcast is hosted by Bowland artist and writer Rob St. John. Its offers glimpses into the Are You Lost? project as it develops through 2025, inviting a range of guests to partake in conversations about art, nature, community and countryside access.
Are You Lost? will be a series of film, sound and textile installations across Bowland which highlight the diverse voices and perspectives of the communities that live around the area. A festival series of temporary installations will be created across the National Landscape, both in accessible public spaces and in more remote, largely-unused spaces in 2025. Rob will be working with producers Lancaster Arts & Blaze Arts.
Rob is an artist and writer based in Lancashire. His practice is focused on the blurring of nature and culture in contemporary landscapes. He works across sound, moving image, text and installation. His work has been shown and heard at Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum, The Barbican, The British Museum and many others. Rob will be working with young people from around Burnley and its surrounding towns.
Are You Lost? is part of Nature Calling, a national programme, run by the National Landscapes Association, in partnership with Activate and supported by the Poetry School and funded by Arts Council England and Defra.
https://www.naturecalling.org.uk/rob-st-john
UK