Nature Calling Conversation #5: INSTAR and Mark Avery

Nature Calling Conversations

As part of the National Landscapes Association’s Nature Calling arts programme, six artists commissioned to produce pieces in collaboration with National Landscapes teams and local communities will be talking about their practice with specialists from other fields for a special webinar series: Nature Calling Conversations.

The fifth Nature Calling Conversation will be between INSTAR artists Trish Evans and Nick Humphreys and Mark Avery.

Nature Calling Conversation #5: INSTAR and Mark Avery

Trish Evans and Nick Humphreys established their INSTAR practice in 2012 and have been working with communities in and around the Lincolnshire Wolds for the past year for their Nature Calling commission.

INSTAR create contemporary site-specific public/visual art, literature and cutting-edge cultural programmes. Their multidisciplinary artwork creates deeper connections to the natural world and is often located unconventionally in wild and urban spaces across the UK. They have collaborated with The National Trust, National Landscapes, National Forest, Nottingham Natural History Museum, and The Wildlife Trusts across the UK, fostering meaningful connections between creativity and the environment.

Mark Avery is a co-founder of Wild Justice (along with Ruth Tingay and Chris Packham), a senior conservationist with 25 years at RSPB and 14 years as an independent campaigner, an author (numerous books including ‘Inglorious – conflict in the uplands’ and his latest ‘Reflections’), a self-described ‘not-bad birder’ and regular columnist for British Wildlife and Birdwatch.

Trish, Nick and Mark expect their conversation to cover the balance between food production and nature restoration, the importance of engaging people in the discussion and need for openness and honesty.

INSTAR’s Nature Calling project: Shelf Life

Lincolnshire Wolds National Landscape Partnership commissioned INSTAR to create ‘Shelf Life’ – an expansive artistic project which challenges and explored the possibility for a sustainable balance between modern day farming and protecting and enhancing nature. It is formed of three elements: a large-scale billboard artwork which toured ten locations within the Wolds landscape this summer; a film and three smaller-scale touring billboards created in collaboration with Lincolnshire young people.

Observing where nature has retreated and how fields for farming have expanded, Trish and Nick engaged with farmers and landowners as well as young people in secondary schools in and around the Lincolnshire Wolds National Landscape, discovering pressures on rural life, farm life and wildlife. They explored this tension between agriculture and ecology, considering the systems, policies, and social demands that drive a loss of nature and biodiversity.

The Shelf Life billboards toured across ten locations in the Lincolnshire Wolds over the course of the summer. They were present at the Lincolnshire Show, provoking open conversations that covered the tricky issues in a way that rose above the current Punch and Judy dialogue characterised by many elected representatives.

Nature Calling

Nature Calling is delivered by National Landscapes Association and executive creative partners Activate Performing Arts. It is funded by Arts Council England and Defra via the Protected Landscapes Partnership and England’s National Landscapes.

Through contemporary conversations about what landscape means to us today inspired by artists working with communities, ‘Nature Calling’ is encouraging and inviting new audiences to make a connection with natural landscapes when there is a current and pressing need to secure nature’s future.

Nature Calling events took place throughout the summer of 2025 in National Landscapes, with larger scale projects in the six hub locations: Chilterns, Dorset, Forest of Bowland, Lincolnshire Wolds, Mendip Hills and Surrey Hills.

Future (final) Nature Calling Conversation:

29 October: Becca Gill in conversation

20-minute versions of all Nature Calling Conversations are available on all good podcast streaming platforms if you’ve missed one or want to listen again, and you can watch them all again in full on the National Landscapes Association’s YouTube channel.

www.naturecalling.org.uk

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