Right to Roam is a site specific installation showing works from Richards’ time studying her Masters in Fine Art at the University of Leeds.
Born and raised in Cumbria, she has been heavily influenced by the outdoors and her experiences roaming and being part of it. Walking allows her to explore her personal relationship to places and the external factors affecting these relationships. She walks to explore space, place and belonging on a wider scale, through the rhythm and time that walking provides. Richards investigates these interests through the lens of collective memory, land access, rights of way, and the politics of walking.
Archival in nature, her practice is an ongoing journey built from a patchwork of walks. Right to Roam invites us into this archive, to experience a combination of personal response pieces, documentary style pieces, text works, and both handwritten institutional style text styles. By engaging different senses, the installation and its works emulate the experience of a walking journey, embracing the surprises and playful nature the walks can have. Within this is layered an exploration of belonging, power, and access. In this Richards invites us to share in the joy of all that a walking journey can hold and to reflect on our own position in relation belonging, power, and access.
Click below to download a digital version of Richards’ zine, Instructions for a Walk/Walks/Walking
Isobel Richards 