Anna Stacey

Collaborating with the partner organisation NatureScot, this interdisciplinary project investigates how visual representations of Scottish nature affect how people value and connect with the natural world. In the current context of the anthropogenic climate and biodiversity crises, increasing levels of human disconnection from nature perpetuate environmental degradation. This research project asks what role visual media plays in people’s sense of connectedness, care and commitment to Scottish environments, landscapes and species.

Drawing on a range of visual media, from film and photography to contemporary art, the project examines how Scottish nature has come to be defined and represented. It explores the affective power of image-making and other sensory media by experimenting with visual participatory methods to understand participants’ affective relations to imagery of Scottish nature. By combining approaches from affect studies, ecocriticism, eco-media studies and ecopsychology, the research analyses how affective relations with visual media might be produced through environmental imaginaries and more-than-human entanglements.