Slacklands 2 at Margaret Howell
Slacklands 2, was launched at Margaret Howell and expands on the first publication adding to the survey, while opening up more diverse readings of landscapes, as well as empathy with ecological assemblages. Slacklands is part of a wider project, which challenges traditional notions of beauty and value, a non-aggrandising form of history that is interested in failure, obsolescence and even ugliness. It also acknowledges an important truth about the countryside, which, far from being an unspoilt rural arcadia, is in fact riddled with the detritus of 19th and 20th century technology. Each of the four typologies in Slacklands 2 has a chapter introduction with illustrations by the artist Peter Nencini.
