our common ground.
Two exhibitions -- one in Scotland, one in England -- that highlight heritage skills and champion design practices that celebrate the ground beneath us - and what it provides us.
Earth Matters is a free exhibition at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh from March 20th to 1st November 2026. Marking 300 years since the birth of the Edinburgh-born geologist James Hutton, 30 artists dive into the ground beneath us, with particular attention drawn to Scotland.
Slow Ways: Our Common Ground was a free exhibition at art’otel in London from May 5th to 30th 2026 that celebrated British craft and design. It highlighted makers encountered during a 1300 mile walk across Britain, alongside additional QEST and Heritage Craft alumni.
Both explored materials of the earth, works that encouraged contemplation of what’s around and below, and heritage techniques that connect with landscapes and communities. This article provides you with some of the works and themes.
Earth Matters.
First up it is worth pointing out that this exhibition is situated within the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh — a free place to visit, and a whoppingly vast one at that. Seriously well-managed, for visitors and for nature. My aim was this exhibit, and I loved it, but the gardens were astonishingly marvellous. Again I’ll say it — free. I had deep frustration with Edinburgh when I visited in January and couldn’t find a green space other than Holyrood Park, so I’m pleased this exists. London wins on parks, but this place beats Kew. You do have to walk through the gardens to arrive at Inverleith House so it’s not a quick visit thing, but then I urge you anyway to make the time to really hang out. As it was, I had to get a coach up to Inverness and only had three hours anyway, but could’ve spent three more.
With a variety of practices on show, there is something for all gallery and museum-goers. Pottery, textiles, jewellery, literature artefacts, photography, interiors, paintings, historic woodblocks…
Geology.
In the late 1700s, Hutton realised Earth was far older than previously believed and pioneered the concept of deep time. His discovery of dramatic uncomformities - breaks in time in otherwise continuous rock formations - revealed vast, missing chapters in Earth’s history. Through meticulous observation, he showed that processes like erosion, sedimentation and uplift continually reshape the planet.
From Louise Bennetts, cotton organdie and silk organza are handpainted with pigments of European soils, with shapes interpreting John Clark of Eldin’s illustrations for Hutton’s Theory of the Earth and various translucencies recalling layers of geology and time. In contrast to this lightness were hand-built vessels from Maria McStay. Made with crank clay embedded with sandstone, shale mudstone, dark basalts, granite, found charcoal and weathered minerals, they appeared rough. Multiple handles and a large volume suggest a shared responsibility to carry the weight — of the goods within, and the materials without.
Ilana Halperin’s woodblock print on Yame washi paper was made with ink composed of soil from Hutton’s farm in the Scottish Borders. The gallery walls were each painted with paint colour-matched to one of over 60,000 air-dried samples gathered from 15,000 locations across Scotland for the National Soils Archive. Maps on the wall in the reading area showed Scotland soil surveys. Viv Lee and Jonathan Wade explore self-gathered native clays from Berwickshire pressed into found material-moulds (bark, timber, grass) to create unique artefacts.
Soil.
Formed slowly, over thousands of years, soil can be damaged swiftly. If current trends continue, expert estimate that by 2050 more than 90% of Earth’s land areas will be substantially degraded, global crop yields will fail, and 50-700 million people will be forced to migrate.
In the gallery entrance was a drawing that immediately captured my attention. Names of supermarkets in a wheel with insects dripping down. Really clever, and also disturbing, that it goes people:supermarkets:wildlife. It’s called Alchemy of Soil by Natalie Taylor. Next to it was another drawing of a fingerprint yet coloured as if a geological formation. A more vibrant drawing is of green and brown pastoral fields and hills by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. September Orkney looks nice, and is supposed to remind us that fields used to be more irregular than today, but realistically this is depicting enclosures.
Delicate charms and amulets from Stefanie Ying Lin Cheng sit in a tray of light soil. You look close and realise they all resemble various microrganisms. There’s a quartz tardigrade, silver diatoms. Under the city delicately shows the overlooked bits that live under us, even in an urban environment, and provide us with healthy nutrient cycles. Handcut paper from Stevi Benson scales up the microscopic hyphae, also below us and minimally considered.
Life.
Artefacts were alongside the artworks. Along with the archive photos mentioned above for the soil survey team, photos from circa 1880s highlighted Scottish outdoor dress, croft life and peat cutting. I was particularly taken by the one of women transporting peat on their backs on the Isle of Lewis; according to the plaque, a good peat cutter could cut 1,000 peat blocks a day. A ceramic interpretation from Crunch Willoughby is of a peat stack made from wild Scottish clays and alluvial deposits, stoneware, and peat ash glaze. Peat is culturally and economically important, but today restoring them is more important. How to do that senstively to history and current croft-living requirements?
In Scotland, peat covers 23% of the land and accounts for 63% of soil carbon. But 80% of Scottish peat bogs are degraded and cause 20% of our carbon emissions - only exceeded by domestic transport. Restoring peatlands by re-wetting them, and protecting them from drainage and extraction, can transform them into biodiversity-rich carbon sinks in less than 10 years.
In contrast to the archival photos, Sekai Machache explores Black Scottish identity with a film Profound Divine Sky, where the photo shown — and in fact used as the exhibit main image — was taken from. It depicts a Black woman amidst The Flow Country’s blanket bog landscape, a seemingly liminal and ethereal space.
Various field notebooks of soil and moss surveys, pamphlets for strawberry and tomato growing in Scotland, a copy of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and a copy of The Living Soil by Lady Eve Balfour all remind the viewer that soil is a commodity. Illustrations from the Book of the Farm (1870s) depict Victorian ideals of rural life, with well-ordered farmworkers in the field.
I wonder what the public perception of farming is today. Is it the pastoral beauty of The Lake District, with happy cows and [white] people living “the good life”? That’s ultimately what we’re promoted, especially with plentiful garden shows and books giving the same vibes.
Heritage.
Kevin Andrew Morris’ wall of wild clay and wood tools for Field Work are fun. I like the thought of working the land with the land. Kelly Murray’s Unearthed bench is constructed from Glasgow building site and skip waste and a West Lothian straw to make a cob mix. “In Scotland, nearly 700,000 tonnes of soil is sent to landfill each year” and straw too is a byproduct. The cushions were also clearly linen. [There’s a segment in another article of mine about the impact of clay]. The density of clay in this form is really pleasing to me, and I seriously want to do some cob building. [I also talk about cob in this article after seeing Lyson Marchessault at work with cob bricks].
Raeburn Brick in South Lanarkshire is the only brickwork remaining from the hundreds that once peppered Scotland. Adam Johnston + Raeburn Brick Limited collaborated to manipulate the proportions of the standard brick, so making a vase that was familiar yet unexpected. Unlike the ubiquitous brick, quernstones aren’t well-known now, yet they were a key tool for hand-milling. Bricks provide security in shelter, while a quern provided security in nourishment. Locally-adapted grains could be grown then milled on site, day by day, to make a daily loaf. Eleanor White’s Quern is made from Lauriston Farm clay, mixed grog, and an ash glaze from Granton Rouge d’Ecosse Wheat and Fulltofta Evolutionary Rye. The Granton Rouge d’Ecosse wheat is a community-owned variety developed over 10 years, bringing it back from near extinction as an ancient grain. [Listen to Farmerama’s Cereal podcast series for more on bread and then also the revisited series for more recent updates to the heritage industry].
Recycling.
Constanza Dessain’s Studio Compost wall of slides was probably my favourite work. I love textures and colours like this, and this was even more fascinating because it showed the decomposition of organic matter. Reminded me of Helen Chadwick’s Carcass work at the National Gallery, of a glass column full of decaying veg waste. “Creation depends on one form perishing so another can flourish”. The gelatine, cyanotype chemicals and kitchen scraps degrade in a process of symbiosis, making tangible that which we often miss because it grosses us out.
Nature Will Out Earthbound and Earth Works by Fiona Young expose the literal roots of growth in a neat way. Plants are grown in vases until they are rootbound, vases smashed and then photos taken of the now unpotted sculptures. Or root balls are displayed in water. Again it’s what we don’t normally see — unless we’re uprooting, unless we’re making a point of learning and engaging. Do these lifeforms continue to live even though they’ve been removed from their usual environment, or as with the bacteria in the glass slides, can they keep evolving?
Slow Ways.
A three month expedition from Land’s End to John O’Groats was used to map makers across the isle who’s practices have become increasingly fragile. Craftspeople here apprenticed with masters before their retirement, or learnt skills of endangered crafts before they were lost for good.
Craft joins an important set of rituals which demonstrate our bond with the living world. A basket woven from willow, a hide tanned with oak - these objects encourage us to consider the landscape and the creations it supports. Our Common Ground is what we share and what we stand to lose. The crafts in this exhibition were not made quickly. They were not made cheaply. They were made with skill, care and time — resources that our world no longer rewards. Perhaps our common ground is not only what we share, but what we choose to protect.
Joss Stoddart — Coffee Table / crafted from a single slab of Scottish elm with edges treated in the Shou Sugi Ban scorching technique. A bronze wedge binds the three intersections.
Sam Chatto — a focus on porcelain following apprenticing under renowned master Yagi Akira in Kyoto, then a residency in Norway exploring local clays, has provided Chatto with an unconventional stoneware-porcelain method.
Zena Holloway — Rootfull / samples of textiles cultivated by guiding grass roots through beeswax templates.
Nic Webb — different species of fallen wood is carved, scorched, burned, soaked and stained to create sculptural light fittings.
Scarlett Farrer — handwoven wall art and interior textiles from British sheep and alpaca wool.
Bonfield Block Printers — Cameron Short and Janet Tristram are based in West Dorset where they create blocks to print all sorts of textiles for coats, upholstery and bags. Satire, protest and poetry once common in woodblocks find their way back, and antique textiles are favoured. The result is quirky, slowly-made stories. For instance, After Albert is an upholstered chair with a single diamond block print in honour of village store entrepreneur Albert Bonfield, known as the ‘Black Diamond’ for his side hustle dealing in coal. Or in LOST (Talisman), a printed bag that uses blocks of an ‘F’, an ‘M’ and image of an ear, a knot, an eye and a sun to spell out ‘fear not my son’, used due to a poor literacy rate in mid 18th century England.
Marchmont Workshop — Samo Cooper and Richard Platt completed an apprenticeship with the remaining practitioner of traditional rush chairs and now source hardwoods locally to their workshop in the Scottish Borders then build a seat from handpicked common river rushes.
Studio Amos — Irish basketmaker Annemarie O’Sullivan grows around twenty varieties of willow and works with coppiced wood, while Tom McWalter works with Annemarie to help design forms for the materials.
Jessica Watson Brown — based in Dartmoor, she is a traditional natural hide tanner. Her tannery uses locally-harvested tree barks and natural oils to tan leather, furs, buckskin and rawhides, with most hides being from deer. Importantly, this work is spoken to as a form of care and respect. Shown here stretched on the frame, the rawhide would dry in the breeze before becoming drums, craft items or parchment.
Geoff Hannis — a former engineer turned pole-lathe wood-turner who studied the art of stop-turning, urushi lacquer and tool forging, before exploring steam bending of pre-turned objects. Specifically, the exploration of candlestick designs in wood that would most usually be reserved for metal.
Aaron Mighty — Throne of Gaia is inspired by sitting with your back against a tree, a lounge chair designed to reconnect people with the natural textures and grains of British timber.
Max Bainbridge — utilising trees that fell where they once grew, he strips the bark, casts wood, and hollows trunks to create objects that highlight the movement of energy. This series of crucibles are turned from the trunk of an ash tree.
Ella Merriman — harvesting her rush by hand in slow-flowing rivers across the UK, she combines this material with found furniture from London’s streets in seeking a dialogue between urban and rural life.
Dye Weave Pleat — three textile traditions in Scotland: natural dyeing, hand weaving, and hand-stitched kiltmaking come together under this collective. Vevar is the first hand-weaving mill in Glasgow’s east end in over a century. Andrea Chappell’s Acme Atelier creates hand-pleated, hand-printed and hand-stitched kilts. Cavan Jayne McPherson specialises in artisan dye techniques and natural low impact colour application for fashion and textiles. For this mini collection they’re joined by Dundee-based jeweller Kristin Beeler who created kilt pins.
I was most delighted with the kilts (so beautiful) and the block printed textiles (charming stories). As always with craft exhibitions I was dismayed that I couldn’t touch. It’s so hard to truly understand a material when you can only look. To ergonomically hold one of the vessels or to sit in the chair as the maker wanted would have provided more education.
Because heritage crafts do take years upon years of learning and honing, everything made thereafter is costly. A craftsperson decides to spend time on making something, and that time is a cost. Harvesting and processing materials from the land is always time too, even if the resources are minimal initially. Craft does become only for those able to pay.
The working classes that established the skills, ensured they were passed on, and built their livelihoods on working from the land can’t then ultimately keep their creations. The object is a commodity to be savoured by someone other than the maker. The maker retains their process, almost as a secret, perhaps that can’t be sold; but they’ve put a price on their time and efforts, and the buyer has paid for that. They’ve purchased, in some way, the tacit knowledge. As a visitor to a free exhibit I can only look and can glean only slight insight based on the information given and my own material knowledge. Yet to fully understand, I’d have to become a craftsperson. Or be able to buy their wares.
Our common ground then, is the notion of the commons. To share something of mine, in return for something of someone else. In a hyperlocal setting.
My veg scraps becomes compost that feeds our beds, that grow flax for seed and fibre, to make oils and cloth, that help us sail down the river catching fish to eat and skin for leather, that we process in a forest that we coppice to make firewood and vessels and furniture and bark for tanning.
Skills are shared, and work is halved. There’s time to spend on the crafts, but there’s time too to spend together in joy of the landscapes and tacit connection.
Thank you for reading.
You may like similarly themed articles:
some kind of love | listening to the voices.
thoughts in the roots | craft of carpentry | woodland goods.
Ainu Stories: Contemporary Lives By The Saru River.
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Stephanie Steele is the founder of Steele Studio, a space that educates everyday folk on the interconnectedness of our food, fibre and fashion systems through community courses and workshops. As an organic food grower and textiles sustainability specialist, she otherwise writes about art, textiles, plants, running and systems design.
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