A Sculpted Land

February 2019 saw the flooding of one of the earth’s driest landscapes. The disaster in the Atacama Desert dramatically changed the landscape claiming lives and homes, and is but a small part of Chile’s larger ongoing environmental struggle. The country’s capital Santiago has not received its average rainfall in over a decade, prompting the Chilean government to declare an agricultural emergency in many areas. Artists Ffion Taverner and Penny Booth travelled to the Atacama Desert in late February 2019, and spent time observing, reacting, and documenting the recently flooded landscape. The result is a series that seeks to gain a greater understanding of our place in an ever changing landscape, a small but meditative observation of the wider climate crisis. Impact and outcome It seems gentle in this moment, even in its coming to be it's only a change in time, Could you bloom? This time the aftermath of water, emerged a new landscape, carving new pathways Holding new possibilities textures, forms. Merely visitors We find our stage cracked and layered Peeling upwards from the ground A platform, A canvas Built of clay, a sculpted land The depth of orange curves of salt Ground as pigment, ground up earth The artist collaborates with you.