Land/Sea

Published 10/05/2024   |   Last Updated 13/05/2024   |   Reading Time minutes

Sponsored by the Senedd Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Dates: 1 June – 31 August

Location: Senedd Oriel & Pierhead Futures Gallery

A photograph showing a grassy landscape with hills in the background. A group of schoolchildren wearing yellow raincoats and backpacks walk towards the hills. The sky above is cloudy and grey.
Field Trip, Preseli Hills, Pembrokeshire, Wales, 2019 © Mike Perry

 

Mike Perry’s contemporary landscape photography opens our eyes to the conflict between human activities and the urgent need to tackle our environmental problems.

In these times of climate emergency and biodiversity loss, the artist’s work asks us to change our relationship with the natural world. Instead of melting ice-caps and burning rainforests, the artist focuses our attention on the environmental crisis at home.

Land/Sea brings together two ongoing bodies of work that have been touring Wales and internationally for a number of years.

A photograph showing grey and white shellfish feeding on the sole of a discarded flip flop.
Flip Flop 29, Playa Santa Maria, Havana, Cuba, 2014 © Mike Perry

 

In the ‘Land’ artworks, the artist focuses on places commonly called ‘areas of natural beauty’. Capturing settings like our national parks, Perry uses the artwork to explore man’s impact on these spaces.  

Môr Plastig (Welsh for ‘plastic sea’) is a body of work that classifies objects washed up by the sea into three groupings: bottles, shoes and grids. Perry uses a high-resolution camera to capture the intriguing surface detail found on each object.

The artist lives and works in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, Wales.

In this photo, the artist depicts a sculpture-like form he made from agricultural plastic sheeting found in a nearby field. The sheets hang ominously over the branches of a local blackthorn tree.
Veiled Thorn, Wales, 2023 © Mike Perry

 

Land/Sea is a Ffotogallery Touring Exhibition

The exhibition has been delivered in partnership with Ffotogallery and Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales.