Abstract

Futureland Now is a contemporary landscape project culminating in an exhibition and publication which builds and reflects upon an earlier exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne in 1989. The original Futureland exhibition set out to engage with and to reflect key issues and concerns current within the contemporary Britain of the 1980s. The use of large-scale colour canvasses together with the use of texts provided a challenging and innovative new format which contributed to a re-evaluation of the aesthetics of contemporary fine art photography. The impact of this development and the accessibility of the medium ensured that the exhibition engaged a broad public audience and was influential in a broad historical context.

Futureland Now provides a context in which to revisit the original exhibition and to reflect upon its legacy. The project contains key (reworked) images from the original exhibition together with relevant developmental material made by both artists in the interim period together with new works. In all cases the works can be said to explore and to reflect many of the original concerns made apparent in the original exhibition. Futureland Now is project located in the North of England but its scope and meanings lay far beyond. The landscape subjects in this work address contemporary issues of culture and society and reflect an economic context that continues to define us as a late capitalist culture in crisis. Much of the rhetoric framing the exhibition links the aesthetic imperatives of the work with earlier artists such as John Martin in their exploration of the industrial and cultural sublime. These issues are further explored in the eponymous publication, published by University of Plymouth Press.