UPDATE:
You can now look at the work featured in the exhibition on their website, Lincolnshireland.co.uk.
A new exhibition has been unveiled at the University of Lincoln.
‘Unearthing: Explorations in the Lincolnshire landscape’ is a collaboration between the Lincoln School of Journalism and the School of Art and Design.
About 20 students from each of the schools visited farms and other rural areas of Lincolnshire. They looked at a range of topics, including the coast at Anderby Creek, and a children’s play area on a site that held munitions during the second world war.
The project mostly involved postgraduate students, as well as second and third year students studying Contemporary Lens Media.
The project resulted from a discussion between Dr Mary O’Neill, a senior lecturer in cultural context, and Professor Richard Keeble, a journalism professor.
At the opening on Friday May 8th, Professor Keeble said that he’d told Dr O’Neill that he loved the Lincolnshire landscape. “And she said ‘I do too’,” and the project grew out of that.
Dr O’Neill said that “students come [to Lincoln] and never see any [of the county].” She said: “We thought it was very important to introduce students to Lincolnshire. People have become so detached.”
Professor Keeble said that “journalism is essentially a metropolitan industry,” which “means the countryside is marginalised.” He said the project offered an opportunity to “try and broaden out the possibilities of journalism”.
Henry Smith, whose farm at Withcall some of the students visited, said: “You can’t very well forget the countryside” but perhaps “the countryside is not as appreciated as much as it should be.”
It is hoped that the project will carry on in some way. Professor John Tulloch, the head of the School of Journalism, said: “We think we’ve discovered something we would like to continue.”
Professor Keeble said: “We’re going to build on this. We can’t just leave it here. The idea is that we get a book published. I’m confident there.”
The work is currently on display in the ground floor corridor of the MHT building at Brayford campus. It will be on show there until Friday May 15th.
After that it is likely to move to Thomas Parker House, where there is “a very clean corridor”, according to Keith James, the programme leader for Contemporary Lens Media. He also said they were working on a website that would display the work.
