somewhere nowhere with Harriet and Rob Fraser

In this episode, Jason König and Jonathan Pitches interview Harriet and Rob Fraser, collectively known as somewhere nowhere, an environmental art and research practice undertaken collaboratively using their skills as a writer and photographer respectively.

Harriet and Rob use photography, poetry and other art forms, along with walking and research to focus on what they identify as sensitive environments and cultures. They work alongside scientists, farmers and analysts as well as public organisations concerned with environmental work, landscape care and rural policies.

We talk first about the origins of Rob and Harriet’s work together in the Lake District, and the beginnings of somewhere nowhere, including a brief look at Anne Stevenson’s poem ‘Utah’, where that phrase comes from. We also talk about the importance of curiosity as a driving force for their practice.

We then look in turn at a series of Rob and Harriet’s recent projects. We start with The Long View from 2018 (‘meetings with seven remarkably ordinary trees in Cumbria in all weathers, all seasons, night and day’), and use that as a starting point for digging into the importance of walking for their practice, the particular challenges of doing photography in mountain environments, and Rob and Harriet’s relationship with the long tradition of poetic and artistic engagement with the Lake District stretching back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Next we turn to a Sense of Here, from 2019, which involved imagining the Lake District National Park as a clock face, and each month camping, and erecting a canvas with a line of poetry, on one of the hour lines, as part of an enquiry into the place from multiple perspectives.

Finally we chat about Harriet and Rob’s role as founder members of the research group the Place Collective, and about some of the challenges and opportunities facing the Cumbrian fells.

Podcast editing by Zofia Guertin.

You can follow the project on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social

To learn more about the Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website here (https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk).