Muirburn Series

Drawings and photographs from Charlotte Smithson’s Muirburn series document and explore landscapes in North Yorkshire where moorland is managed for grouse shooting. Smithson studies and records landscapes which have been rotationally set fire to and scorched through the practice of muir burning. Muir or heather burning promotes new growth to feed grouse for sport shooting. This widely debated, controversial practice of burning on moorland peat bogs negatively impacts water quality, river ecology, carbon storage and habitat diversity.

Charlotte Smithson’s meditative marks are made with charred heather and reference shapes of the burn-scars left on the land where the charcoal was found. Each drawing scribes quiet words of protest, apology and hope for these landscapes and the systems of life they sustain, as though site specific prayers.

Her photographic studies of charred remnants and scorched peat are captured on 35mm film. Charlotte sustainably hand processes her film using moorland heather flower teas, peaty upland run-off and puddle water to produce an archive of her field studies. She enjoys the organic entanglement of location specific chemistry and materiality of these inflicted landscapes to process the imagery that she captures.