Land-Shaping Legacies

Land Shaping-Legacies explores how artists, collectors, curators and communities have shaped the way we see County Durham and the surrounding region. About Bringing together prints, paintings, ceramics, everyday objects and co-created community works, the exhibition looks beyond picturesque views to uncover stories of work, ownership, extraction, care and change. At its heart is The Bowes Museum’s Local Print Collection: more than 200 works, many of which have been in storage for over 30 years. These prints reveal how local landscapes were selected, recorded and sold – and how museums decide what to collect, display and remember. New works created by craft groups from Coundon and Brandon bring fresh voices to the collection. Their responses show that the meaning of “local” is never fixed: it can be revisited, questioned and reimagined. The exhibition also explores the museum’s own land-shaping legacy, from the coal wealth that helped make it possible to the collecting and preservation that followed. It asks us to consider how landscapes are shaped by power, belief, work and everyday life – and what we might choose to protect, change or create for the future. This project is the result of a Curatorial Research Grant award from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, in partnership with The Bowes Museum and the Institute for Social Justice, York St John University. Read more Toggle Prints